Quite a bit of snow, better than expected was a common phrase today and it was nice to have a relatively calm day with regards to wind. Sluffing was noted but manageable on all aspects. I wanted to dig down during travels to take a look at the persistent weak layer on the southern half of the compass. I found it to be spotty - perhaps dependent on the sun angle this time of year and my pit locations.

At around 10K I got a very easy shear out of a quick pole pit column on a SE facing slope. The crust here was apparent as well as the facets. I would expect in this location I could get an ECT result, and I went back to my day of skiing NE blower.

I later dug down at 9600 SE and got an ECTN and a CT23 Q2 - on the facets near the crust, which was not much of a crust in that location. Roughly 2 feet down. My take... It's spotty and it's worth taking the shovel out and dig quick pole pits for a few minutes. I definitely approached my exit back to Alta with a different mindset-though the storm snow has yet to slab and was low SWE. If we were to get a lot of liquid quickly with wind then I would guess we'll step down again to this layer - time and weather will tell.