Party 1: Splitboarders on a dawn patrol got cracking and collapsing as they ascended Mt. Ellis. This occurred as they popped out of the trees at 7,600' so they stuck to lower elevation slopes. The snow stability worsened from their trip the day before. New snow and wind-loading made conditions ripe for cracks and whumphs.
Party 2: from an email, "...skinned up Little Ellis from the north today. We went up into some of those clear cuts that are visible on that side. Not surprisingly, the snow was pretty thin, with an HS of around 60 to 70 cm. The bottom 20 cm or so was total junk facets. We were getting large collapses breaking trail that were shaking bushes 30 or 40 feet away. Every time we got into some fresh snow we would get a good collapse. We were in low angle terrain (about 25 deg at the steepest), but if it had been steeper I would have been obviously pretty worried."