We checked out conditions on Little Pine today as we were interested in the state of south-facing chutes in LCC. We departed the White Pine trailhead under partly cloudy skies (SCT), temperatures in the upper teens, and no wind. The snowpack in the couloir felt rightside up during our pole probes, however, there was a 5 cm melt-freeze crust and windboard (1F) overlying weak, fist hard snow at the top of the snowpack. Informal hand shear tests had resulted in easy shears at this crust (windboard) and weak snow interface. We observed several, small (D1) wet loose avalanches along the sides of the couloir (SW and SE aspects) from yesterday's sun. Some of these wet loose avalanches appeared to step down approximately 10-15 cm into a weak surface layer. A layer of graupel was noticeable in our bootpack approximately 25 cm down from the surface once we were above the 9,000' elevation band.

The weather began to change around 0900 with increased cloud cover (OVC), light snow (S-1 to S1 rates), and slight wind from the west. While the ambience was five stars, the skiing was zero stars - the breakable crust and soft snow combination made for a slow and methodical descent.