Faceted Loose

The surface hoar in the drainage bottoms is significant. The diurnal near surface faceting on shaded aspects is significant. No surprises so far. But I was surprised at how much more faceting there was at mid elevations with shallow snowpacks then higher up where the pack is deeper. Above 9000' it's the NSF I expected- creamy, delicious, loud skiing. But below 9000' it was faceted almost the full depth of the snowpack. Just about everywhere I went that was above 35 degrees sluffed all the way to the ground- not only terrible travel but completely rotten out and hard to see that junk healing anytime soon. It wasn't too long ago when I was thinking all we needed was 1 more good mid-elevation storm, now I'm starting to wonder if this is going to be a high elevation only ski season. Not to sound too alarmist, I fully recognize I was only looking at a small area, I hope it's different elsewhere...