Absolutely right. I dug a pit on the southside of the peaks just a day or two before this happened. We couldn't get a fail from our compression test, but we did see a sketchy looking layer of almost pure ice with practically no penetration. For us, this layer was only about 8 inches off the ground, maybe because we were on a southern-facing aspect. However for them, I wouldn't be surprised if that layer had something to do with the failure.
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