6996'

The morning sun made our ascent a sweat-a-thon. We expected to see more solar-related instabilities on southern slopes, but we did not. The afternoon clouds continued to roll in and partly cloudy skies kept ambient air temperatures cool.

We traveled on a supportable crust that we estimated to be the result of a wind/sun-crust combination, that was topped with about an inch of soft snow.

Stubborn cornices previously developed from prevailing SW winds showed signs of erosion from the more recent N and E winds.

We observed reverse wind scour along ridgelines (also from recent N and E winds).

Skiing “stiff” snow on a NE aspect made for many guarded, defensive turns with intermittent pockets of soft snow.  Additionally conditions we sampled during our descent included wind-hammered powder, sun-crust, wind-board, and dust-on-crust conditions.

Snowpit on NE aspect @ 6800 feet. HS: 185. ECTX. Mid-January crust 95cm from the surface. Christmas crust 115cm from the surface. Density increase with depth. 30cm down old surface interface-we expected it to propagate, but it did not. Rounding facets above the mid-January crust.