Cooke City-Republic Peak

Hi guys it has been a long time since I have submitted an observation but I have been keeping all of you in my heart during a very stressful season and I sincerely hope you are all doing ok. Today I went out and skied with two friends (Laura will probably submit her observations too) outside of Cooke City we went and skied up onto Republic Peak via the trailhead and climbed up and skied on some north facing stuff. I attached a photo of the route. We all talked a lot before, during, and after the tour about erring on the side of caution given the big picture snowpack this season, regardless of the fact that we went to Cooke because it seems to be more stable than anywhere else. I flat out refused to consider going into avalanche terrain and even put up a hard boundary on anything over 30 degrees, which we were able to stick to on this route and got to climb the peak AND ski some great powder lower down on a beautiful day. We dug a pit at 9377’ and got an ECTP 21 Q3 on a N facing slope that was 24 degrees in a clearing in the trees. The shear happened 55cm down and the snowpack was 2 meters deep at that spot. This feedback reinforced our decision to keep things conservative and we proceeded up to the peak without incident, sticking to slopes no steeper than 28 degrees and then skied back down to around 9000’ and did a couple of laps. On the final lap I did trigger a break in a concave gulley that cracked all the way across where it was wind loaded but did not move probably because the slope was not steep enough. That and some isolated whoomphing and some wind scoured hard slabs above 9800’ were the most obvious feedback we got from that area today. Slopes that are west facing have been heavily wind scoured and we observed heavy loading and cross loading on E faces primarily, I attached some photos of this. And also a beautiful shot of a large avalanche path (not active now) coming down off the Sirens. A good day and I want to thank you all so much for all the information and hard work this season and always, I (and my friends) greatly appreciate everything you do!!!!!