Observation: Summit

Partly sunny skies, quickly became mostly cloudy. No snow. Temperatures in the mid 20s F increasing to near 30F as the day progressed. Road level to mid alpine was calm with no real wind, as we gained the ridge and approached the summit there were light winds out of the South.

@1300' - 1" of new snow over 4-5" of settled powder

@2600' - Lightly wind blown still soft

@3000' - Thin wind skin beginning to form, still soft

On steeper sun exposed features, like the edges of the skin track, a sun crust was beginning to form.

Rain crust present under ~6+ inches of snow. Crust becomes unsupportable around 1800'. By 2300' the crust was gone.

Height of snow at 1300' was ~3', Height of snow at 1800' was ~4', 2500' and above snow depth was variable due to wind effect.

Pit @ 3300', SW aspect, 20 degree slope, HS: 135cm.
15cm of fist hard wind blown snow at the top. This was over a 33cm thick wind slab. This wind slab sits above a thin layer of 4 finger hardness 2-3mm advanced facets. Tests yielded CT19 and ECTN19 at this layer of advanced facets.
Snow depth along the ridgeline was highly variable due to heavy winds during past storms, most recently the Valentines Day storm cycle.

Pit @ 2400', NW aspect, 25 degree slope, HS:130cm.
Small surface hoar crystals (1-2mm) growing at the surface. Buried surface hoar present 45cm down from the surface. 3+mm depth hoar present at the ground.
The snowpack at this elevation still has very poor structure. There is currently 85cm of cohesive snow sitting above a rotten faceted lower snowpack.
Tests yielded CT21 & ECTP21 on the buried surface hoar 45cm down from the surface.Tests also yielded CT21, CT24, ECTP25 115cm down from the surface, this failure was within the rotten lower snowpack.