Observation: Summit

Low cloud ceiling moving in and out between 2000' and 4000'. Winds were calm, with steady snowfall maybe amounting to an inch of accumulation over the ~4 hours we were out. Temps were warm, it felt like it was just barely cold enough to be snowing.

Borderline supportable surface crust up to 2000'. 4-6" new snow on an older crust above 2000', up to a foot deep on slopes that had been wind-loaded over the past week.

The new and winblown snow sitting on top of last week's melt/freeze crust was giving us mixed signals. On one hand, it was difficult to pry off in hand pits and did not produce propagating test results. All good signs. But, when we did get the new snow to shear in our hand pits it popped right out on a very smooth plane every time. We still didn't quite trust it, but it seems like it is becoming more stubborn and less likely to make an avalanche. We also noticed multiple layers of crusts with rounding facets above or below. These are showing signs of gaining strength and seem like they will either need a big loading event or a major warm-up to become reactive. We got one unstable result (ECTP11) on a layer buried about a foot deep, just below a crust. This was in a spot with a much thinner snowpack. We did not get concerning test results in a snowpit that seemed to be closer to 'average' depth for the area.

The big caveat is that the majority of our snowpit info in Summit is coming from below 2500' or so, so there is still a bit of uncertainty with what these layers look like in the alpine.