Hunter Hill / Star Pass

I covered a lot of ground hunting for remote triggers and signs of instability by targeting shallow areas and thick-to-thin transitions.  In most areas, the snowpack was quiet under my sled; however, I did trigger a few obvious signs of instability.  The snowpack structure on the north half of the compass is total garbage and not to be trusted: facets fell out of the pit as I dug past 2 foot hard slabs (1F), and I consistently found moderate ECTP results. 

Surface conditions and riding quality were better than expected: the rain crust is buried a few inches deep, soft and thin here, and slabs are stiff and supportive (1F).  They range from 45 cm on windward and BTL features to 70 cm+ on leeward features NTL.  Weak layers are consistently large-grained (2mm+), fist hard, and show minimal signs of strengthening/rounding.  Slabs appear to be smaller and less continuous on windward aspects ATL, but with more trigger points.  I only poked briefly into a SE aspect NTL and found a very thick crust (15 to 20 cm) capping the drought facets, and that was on a 20 degree slope; I would expect an even thicker crust on steeper terrain.