Observation from last two days: West Porter and Gobbler's shoulder/cabin run. The foot+ of new snow seemed to start with some graupel, and with some hasty holes dug on both days I was able to get a clean shear on that layer, but took some effort. With the overnight/morning wind (see pic of wind-rippling effect) we didn't feel a need to carry on up to the Gobbler's ridge where the slope angle steepened and perhaps some slabbage might have formed; it probably would have been okay but we had quite nice skiing on the fast lower-angle lower bits. Later we saw that some folks had the confidence to nail the Cabin Run from the top with the same elevation/aspect, but maybe not the same amount of wind over there? No whoomphs on the skin line or even on the thinner-snowpack SW facing line on the other side of Allen's Gully.

Between the PWL lurking deep and that graupel layer that won't have time to heal before the Really Big Show this weekend things might get pretty real.

We found the rain crust under the new snow below 8000 and off the top of my head I would think that would provide a pretty good cap on the lower-elevation PWL issue, but I did not test this theory by digging a hole on our exit.