For this AAI Level 1 course we dug on a 243* WSW aspect at 9700'. Below the roughly 24 cm of new snow we found a series of two crusts with 4F hard snow between, above the NSF from our dry spell. The presence of the crusts was not a surprise on this aspect, however the lack of strength found in our stability testing caught us off guard. Both the CT and ECT failed during isolation, down 33 cm, at the interface of the lower crust layer and the old NSF. Just a single data point, but results that caught our eye.