I had been wanting to test the January facets on steeper terrain all week and today got my chance. The results were positive. The interface between the late January new snow and the early January facets appears to have gained strength nicely. 7 days after I poked around in this area and didn't find any signs of instability, but was worried about the structure, I was able to dig on a steeper slope (37 deg) and both ECT and CPST indicated stability. ECT was ECTX and CPST was 75/90 with no column movement. The facets did collapse at the very end in a haphazard manner, meaning not a single horizontal shear plane, but a kind of zig zag through the layer, but it was short (15cm) and didn't produce any displacement of the overlying snow. That, combined with a pretty good thump from some sluffing (described above) had me feeling pretty good about the bonding for the first time since it started snowing again. We (and another party) skied the shoulder without incident, and also skied similar steep terrain a bit lower in the theater of the pines with only sluffing observed.

I would call today's hazard moderate in the mid to low elevations, and only due to the ubiquitous but manageable sluffing. Probability of slab avalanches is, at the moment, low (not "no"!) in these areas, even on steep slopes.

Skiing and riding is decent but not great. The crust is mostly supportable on fat skis and snowboards. Skinny skis can punch through. Above 8000 the crust disappears and conditions are better.

Note that I cannot comment on conditions above 9000 feet. I would still approach the top of Primrose with caution, digging as I went to see if anything is changing with elevation, because it is certainly possible.