Cassiope

Alpine/exposed treeline: recent snow has been redistributed by moderate to strong northerly winds. We saw scoured surfaces, sastrugi, stiff wind slab, and varying degrees of wind press in a relatively small zone. The wind slab/press was reactive to skier traffic (shooting cracks, small cookies) on small test features - we did not venture into steep or convex terrain. We saw multiple crowns on steep NE aspects below cliff bands up to size 2 (~40cm thick, ~30-60m wide). We suspect that these likely happened within last day or two. Sheltered treeline/below treeline: 30-35cm fist-density snow reacting as a very soft slab on the supportive crust from early Feb. The bond to this crust was extremely poor - every small convexity would dependably fail. Propagation was limited to the small features we were skiing but the moving snow would sometimes entrain and run far. Absolutely atrocious travel conditions in mature forest where the crust is on the surface or under a skiff of snow.