L1 Avalanche course in the Temptation Trees

This was the second day of this season's first L1 course. The thin snow cover made our entrance/exit a bit tricky and required extra effort, but the stoke was high with a few inches of soft snow on the surface.  No instabilities noted, and some fun turns were had. On about every other turn, you could feel the "Grinchy" holiday ice layer below; still, I would consider it good skiing conditions. The snowpack was deep enough for turns, generally between 10500' and 11500' on the W-NW slopes that we rode. Some caution was needed to avoid striking buried wood. 

On our approach at the edge of the ski area, we noted a recently formed wind skin near the top of the closed Pluto ski run (~ westerly aspect). This micro wind slab was 3cm thick and was slightly denser than the underlying snow. Very small wave/ripple patterns caused by wind-transported snow were obvious on the surface.  From there, we accessed the Humphreys trail and ascended. 

On a westerly slope at 11000, we found 90cm of snowpack. It was generally strong, but poorly structured, consisting of alternating layers of (very hard) ice/crusts and softer layers. Facets could be found throughout. It was difficult to produce failures in the snowpack. No propagating failures were noted during our ECT tests this past weekend. 

The snow surface consisted of a few inches of new snow over near surfce facets. Below that was ice, not easily penetrated by a ski. 

In general, the snowpack we examined on a NW slope at treeline the day before could be characterized similarly. Poorly structured but strong, and instability test failures did not propagate.