Observation: Davenport Hill

The sun is doing a number on south faces, causing a melt freeze crust while north facing, high elevation, sheltered terrain skied well today. Surface hoar was present on N aspects, mostly between 9000-9500 ft where I was. I experienced some of what other observers have with faceting almost to the ground on some shaded N faces, while others didn't have quite as much faceting and were more supportable. Dug a few pits east facing between 9900-10000ft. finding similar snowpack structure. Performed a compression test with no results. No immediate concerns with the snowpack, but loading on top of what we have now will almost certainly cause avalanches. With the near surface facets, surface hoar in other places, and two distinct weak layers below the snow surface this is not a snowpack ready to take on a massive dump of snow.