Surface hoar alive and well in Steep Creek (incidentally so is powder skiing).

Breaks of clear sky, 20 cm fresh (ski penetration on the road)

Warming throughout the day, winds at time strong - lots of light snow available to move around.

easy shovel shears down 45, produced hard compression test results (22). Surface hoar down 15 cm produced moderate, sudden planar compression test results (12) - it is standing tall and strong down 15cm. The surface hoar was a fun, engaging friend to ski with - lots of pillows popping off as we moved through boulder fields... shooting cracks as well (only unique to the rock-covered areas - this did not persist into the deeper snow regions where no shooting cracks, nor whumpfing were observed)! Relatively well consolidated upper pack. The "punchiness" we found BTL didn't come up with us to tree line.