East Face of Mt. Ellis Summit

Toured up to the summit of Mt. Ellis this morning. The weather was clear skies, sunny, and a slight westerly breeze up top and along the ridge. Along the ridge we saw many small to medium sized cornices. We knocked a couple small ones off on to the slope below and they slid on a very firm wind loaded surface (pictures). There is quite a bit of firm wind loaded along on the ridge but we saw no shooting cracks or other signs of instability. We dug a pit on the East face just below the summit to evaluate the layer of facets near the ground and got an ECTX result. All signs were pointing to good stability and we enjoyed a very nice run down the Mt. Ellis Direct decent.