Quick report
Skied a short, reasonably steep (30-35 degree) north-facing line on the backside of Spout Springs above Lookingglass Creek. The melt-freeze cycle produced some serious punch crust, which cracked below our boards on most aspects, but temps only barely dipping below freezing left the snow below the crust mushy and wet. We left the car at 6:15 and were on top of our line at 7:30, planned as such to avoid the warming from the morning. The sky was cloudless and it warmed faster than we expected, but we safely skied our line on the backside (with two or three genuinely good turns in there) before skinning back up the face. While ascending the face, we observed roller balls releasing from our skintrack as early as 8:30, after the face had been in sun for at most one hour. We conducted a simple hand shear test on the upper six inches of the snowpack (in the shade, but on a slope that got late morning to late afternoon sun) to examine the crust formation (picture below). We got a clean release about 1.5 inches down, below where the crust formed. Overall, while the skiing was pretty poor, the stability was quite good, and we felt confident recreating on steeper slopes in the early morning before the sun warmed them too significantly.