McGee

I found a faceted, weak snowpack that lacked supportable structure. On north to east-facing aspects, travel was arduous as I broke through old wind-drifted slabs and wallowed in cohesionless facets. On southeast aspects, I found supportable travel on a melt-freeze surface. Snow quality was consistently variable, including facets, breakable wind boards, and frozen-melt-freeze crusts on solar aspects. The snow depth in the east-facing shots off McGee is shallow and sharky. 

No signs of instability found on the tour.

I found the snowpack structure generally poor in the McGee area. The average height of snow on a northerly aspect around 9500' is sitting around 90cm.

• 1/1 is sitting midpack, with facets above and below.
• This is one of the places in our forecast zone holding a bed surface and a weak layer, and lacking a strong slab. 
• Well developed near surface facets sit on the surface. Faceting snow is the primary surface grain across the east face, and weak surface snow is continuous across the terrain.
• I found isolated old wind slabs to feel hollow and drumlike but unreactive. While this surface is discontinuous across terrain, ski crampons or sharp tools would be useful on slick, old wind-pressed surfaces. 
• On solar aspects, the melt-freeze crust comprises the upper 20cm and did not soften before I left around 1:30 pm.