Observation: Cardiff Pass

On the skin-track up Cardiff Pass in Alta at 9:30am, there was a noticeable change in snow surface texture at ~9200ft from a rain crust formed on 12/21. At 9350ft on a wind sheltered SE aspect 28° steep, I dug a pit to look for the presence of the November facets. There were some 1mm facets at the base of the snowpack that seemed moist and could clump. 20cm below the surface was a weak layer of 4f hardness below a pencil hard-slab made of rounded grains and graupel, I believe to be from the dry spell prior to this last storm. A CT caused a sudden collapse after 21 taps at this 20cm deep WL. I then performed a PST on this layer which failed in a slab fracture 36cm/100cm. The snow depth of this test area ranged from 45cm to 55cm and at the time of testing the suface did not appear to be affected by any warming.