Todays tour made for tricky skiing. We skied Northern aspects between elevations of 8850' and 8600'. Any higher and slopes were too wind loaded and riddled with wind slabs, any lower and the coverage was poor, and the snow pack was unsupportable. A second pit was dug on the same aspect at 8600' and had a total depth of 45cm. In this area, there were only two distinct layers. The upper 15cm was made of of fresh storm snow from the Dec 10-11 storm, and the lower 30cm was nearly all facets. The largest grains in this layer were nearly 5mm.