Increasing winds on Incline Peak

We toured the Incline Peak area today to check out conditions ahead of our incoming storm.  Soft snow surfaces could still be found in protected areas.  S-SW winds started to pick up in the area around noon.  Wind transport was evident on ridgetops, and wind effected snow surfaces could be found in open areas.  This led to some localized cracking and collapsing in areas where denser wind transported snow rested on top of softer surfaces.  We dug a pit on a NE aspect at 8700' to look for any buried weak layers in the snowpack.  A strong rain crust from New Years could be found approx 3' down from the surface.  In this area the new snow appeared well bonded to the rain crust.  Although we found several density changes in the new snow that failed in small column tests (CT) these did not show signs of propagation on larger column tests (PST).  The trees in this area have a thick coating of ice and dense snow, and we saw some recent evidence of large fallen branches.