Observation: South Fork

Photos:

#1 Facets to the ground mean your boots also can hit the ground when you pop out of your skis. In a lot of locations, the crust can be supportable, but not here.

#2 Wind-textured surfaces near ridgeline

#3 On a WNW slope near 9100', with a thin zipper crust only if you hit the wrong side of the micro-aspect

The key takeaways are that (1) the snowpack is generally stable and (2) is weakening from the surface down due to the cold, clear weather, and will become a problem when buried. For now, the near surface faceting just means good, recycled facet pow skiing as we experienced today. With HS that varied between 50-90cm between 9000-10,400', the usual low coverage suspects—rocks, stumps, logs, etc.— were more of a safety concern than avalanches.

Looking ahead, the snowpack is generally composed of F to 4F facets, with one stouter crust from the December rain event near Christmas (see profile), and in some areas (particularly below 9700') a secondary, less stout crust from the warm temperatures early in December. Surfaces continue to be a "you can find it if you know what to look" game. In much high, alpine terrain, the sustained N winds have also hammered surfaces to make for the wind-hammered, wind crust, wind-scoured, wind-buffed variety pack.