Observation: Scotts Backdoor

Interesting to see what you find when you look. Found a 4mm layer of diurnal facets and some surface hoar buried 45 cm deep at two northwest facing spots at 9700' and 9300'. No propagation with ECT (ECTX x 2), but a shovel shear easily elicited full propagation on this very thin weak layer sandwiched between pencil hard layers. I don't believe there has been any activity on this layering but worth noting.

That said, primary concerns in the coming days will be with new snow instabilities and isolated repeater slopes.

Some soft settled powder in wind/sun sheltered terrain above about 9300'.  This "soft settled powder" is another name for recrystallized near-surface facets.  In some areas, these surface facets are capped by small diameter surface hoar.  The new storm snow may bond poorly to this weak surface snow (it's not exceptionally loose) depending on a few factors.  Photos below of weak surface snow.   'V' symbol denotes surface hoar (1990 “International Classification for Seasonal Snow on the Ground”).  The second photo is after I've dragged my ski pole across the loose surface snow,.