Very interesting surface conditions today. My party had a lot of different adjectives to describe the snow surface. Styrofoam, velvet, cream cheese. It actually made for very fun skiing. The new snow was very dense and ski penetration was only 2-3" even with 12" of new snow. Conditions were very deceiving today. It was hard to tell just how much new snow had fallen. The strong winds had stripped most of the snow from any windward slope, and in some places it was hard to tell that it had even snowed. We took measurements in sheltered areas, did several quick hand pits, and dug a full pit on a NE slope around 10,900 ft. Also, the storm board had a foot of new snow and was not drifted in.

The new snow has formed a dense slab (4F) sitting on top of the softer (F+) old snow surface.