Tamarack

There were around 20 cms of new snow on the ground in the Tamarack area. There has been quite a bit of ski traffic here with several firm skin tracks heading out in various directions. Given the seasonal snowpack history I shouldn't have been surprised when I stepped out of my skis at just under 9100 feet and sunk nearly to the ground through several weak layers of snow. Wallowing a few steps towards my pit location was a decent lesson about the weak snowpack. 

We dug a pit and the layer of large weak facets at the ground was clearly visible. Multiple test results failed on this layer. Roughly the bottom half of the snowpack was moist and clumped when squeezed in your glove. Despite the moisture the bottomost layer of large facets/depth hoar still displayed strong sugar like qualities until compressed in your hand.