Helen Shoulder

Skinned to Helen Shoulder and dug a pit. 75cm HS in a lee area. HS is crazy variable in the area right now thanks to wind and sun. There was a dense wind slab in the upper snowpack that failed on medium compression test taps on every column. We did not see results on the Nov 8 crust which is 2-3cm thick. We got an easy result on one compression test on ground, the lower facets here were dry and loose (on Observation Peak we found them wet and rounding). Skiing was everything from pretty good to basically on ground, (aka horrible). The steeper solar slopes at treeline have burned off for the most part or have a nasty crust. The lower forest is thin but the travel wasn't all that bad. The bowl/burn area looks very thin and will need a fair amount of snow before I would bother trying for it. I'd wait for a few big storms before heading back into this zone.