Tungstar

I bumped around on my day off and skied for skiings sake. I found a supportable melt-freeze crust on northerly aspects below 8500' to be the most recent change to our surface conditions . The new melt-freeze crust did not soften through today.

Sharp things (crampons, ski crampons, ice tool) were very useful today. Our alpine windboard is slick. 

Found a wet loose on a north facing slope around 8500'. Likely ran yesterday.

The biggest change over the last 48 hours to our current surface conditions is the widespread melt-freeze crust below 9,000'. Yesterday’s sustained warm temperatures built a supportable (to skis) melt-freeze crust up to 8,500'. This crust became unsupportable (to skis) above 8,500' and was absent on north-facing terrain at 9,000'. I did not find this crust to soften through the day.

Near-surface facets (1.5 mm–2 mm) were obvious to the naked eye on the surface above 9,000'.

On north-facing terrain in the alpine, surfaces are variable and made up of firm, old windboard and loose facets. The transition in couloirs is abrupt, and supportable wind board was found in north-facing guts; loose facets came into play where the snowpack was thinner on rocky flanks.

Solars were melting out at all elevations.