Faceting in Elkford

Today in Mear Lake we found 40 cm of soft faceted snow over a generally shallow, faceted snowpack. The December 5th melt freeze crust was down 65 cm and no sign of a Dec 23 crust at this elevation. There was very little wind effect at the treeline and below treeline. We did not get any direct alpine observations but suspect isolated wind slabs directly lee of ridges. There were three older size 2 to 2.5 wind slab avalanches from southeast-facing cross-loaded start zones.