A little bit of everything today. I spent a significant amount of time on solar aspects. I skied and climbed SW and S. These slopes were a mix of melt-freeze crusts and damp surface snow. This snow was becoming "spring-like" by the middle of the day. I even experienced some minor glopping on my skins while traveling up a SW face. Above treeline northerlies have a mix of wind crusts, old and hard wind slabs, and pockets of powder. The most quality skiing was on sheltered northerlies near treeline. This is your best bet for powder, although options are limited due to low snow conditions. The deepest spots today were around 2 feet.
One consistent theme of my tour today was a lack of red flags. There's not much going on out there right now, and the snowpack seems to be deteriorating due to cold, clear nights and warm sunny days. The 11/30 storm snow is becoming weak and faceted, which means decreasing danger for the short term. When it snows again, we will most likely face significant avalanche problems. The pit profile below was dug on a north face above treeline at 10,970 feet. Nothing was alarming about this pit, besides being very weak overall. Test results were ECTX x2.
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