Excessive facets at Elk

Skiing at Elk today was terrific. 30 cm of low density, progressively dense snow sits atop the January drought crust, with a small layer of layer of facets sandwiched between. This crust varies in thickness from 1-10 cm, depending on aspects and elevation. Below the crust, 5 cm of large facets can be found. This layer produced moderate results in compression test. This buried weak layer may persists longer than problems typically do on the Island. Open mellow slopes gave us the best turns. Wind effect near ridge top was beginning to be notable. In the trees you could still feel the hard crust below the new snow. Beautiful large surface hoar (2 cm) was widespread.