My observation today is from my several trips this week in the Hoyt and Weber canyon areas in zones at and below tree line, so, out of the real wind zone. Generally, I'm finding stable snow with several buried persistent weak layers in the top half of the snowpack, although there are some that are deeper. These weaknesses are generally smaller grained facets. The weakest layer is about 2 feet but I've only gotten this layer to propagate across an exteded column once and with hard effort to fail (ECTP25). I haven't gotten any layer to propagate across an Extended Column Test other than the one I just mentioned. Photos below are from Jan 23's ECT and just show the layers and shear quality of two weak layers, the botttom which has been the weakest layer in my travels. I pulled the blocks forward on the column, they did not slide on the column.

The rime crust from Jan. 23 seemed thin and spotty but may need to be looked at with time and new snow loads. It seemed like more rime was getting blown out of the trees than was actually laid down on the snow surface.

Cool crystal growth on the trees.