As is usual during periods of dry weather, the snow surface is quite varied across terrain. In shady, or mostly north facing areas up high, a hard rain-crust dominates the shallow snowpack structure. In some areas this is likely become a problem when its buried, a smooth bed surface with a couple inches of very loose faceted snow on top of it.

Before the December snow stacks up, I'm keeping track of the many bare and only shallowly covered slopes that will not be plagued by any weak October or November snow.