Back at the Mill, morning weather treated recreators to a spectacular show of dazzling stellars, rimed trees (pictured), and around 6" of new snow. Wind drifts from previous NW winds were present in exposed terrain (attached is photo of a 3' drift lee to a tree, with McCartney for scale.) A uniform layer of large, intact, buried surface hoar (pictured) was found on E through N terrain in an open, upper elevation area near the wind zone. Handpits on upper elevation E through N were failing on this surface hoar layer with regularity. A snowpit dug in an area harboring weak snow reveals a setup for astoundingly poor structure. Two ECTs performed in the snowpit may speak very different results, but the quantity of weak snow, in this hole, lent itself to either a quick failure, or a total disintegration. This discrepancy in result has been present over the last month in other areas containing especially weak snow.