Will provide comments as a list:

- The weakest snow I was finding was at low elevations (< 7k) where the old snow surface had faceted early this past week with a soft slab of storm snow not on top.

- There are weak layers in the top ~80 cms of the snowpack, but nothing alarming and I expect the snowpack to gain strength over the next few days.

- I dug quite a few pits on northerly aspects and got full propagation (typically ECTP21) in most tests, but the one that got my attention was on a north aspect at 8,200'. The HS was 220 cms with a crust from the 2/2 warmup buried down 80 cms. ECTP12 on facets above the crust and ECTP21 on facets below the crust. Curiously, this facet/crust combination wasn't widespread so it is possible this location indicates the spatial variability of any buried weak layers.

- No collapsing and cracking, despite jumping on many test slopes.

- Other than a few small pockets at low elevations, the only natural avalanche activity we saw was on Willard Peak with a shallow soft slab and long-running sluff of loose snow below.

- The Ben Lomond headwall had no signs of natural avalanche activity.

Overall, this recent storm has provided great coverage and will help strengthen what is already a relatively strong snowpack. Given the huge amounts of water weight the past few days, I still want to give things a bit more time to settle, but I like the direction of the snowpack around Ben Lomond.

Photos:

- small natural avalanche at 6,500

- pit below Indicator Slope at 7,000' with ECTP21

- pit at 8,200' with full propagation above and below 2/2 rain/temperature crust

- natural avalanche activity below Willard

- Ben Lomond headwall showing no signs of natural avalanches