Weather
Warm and calm.
Snowpack
We found around 15-18" of snow near the valley floor that was mostly trap-door facets. As we travelled through the near treeline elevation band to about 11,700 feet, the snowpack depth increased to around 2 feet (~60cm) thick. The snowpack would crack and collapse locally (up to around 10 feet away) in open north and east-facing glades. As we nudged into alpine terrain, we found deeper, very firm drifts that our skis barely left a mark in, mixed with shallower faceted areas with no collapsing. Poking around the margins of the slabs did not produce any cracking.