Observation: Garden City Bowls

We found touchy conditions at garden city today. The new snow was still very soft but had formed enough of a slab to create localized collapsing and cracking in many places. Down lower in the protected areas the new snow sat on top of intact surface hoar. This created very reactive conditions and hand shears would fail very easily or upon isolation. Up higher I believe that the new snow was sitting on top of near surface facets instead of surface hoar (not 100% sure). The snow didn't seem quite as reactive here but failed very easily in stability tests with Q1 shears.