Stubborn but scary

Sled skiing at the gorge- road is still in but very whooped. We put skis on at 15km, at 1400m there is a 5cm supportive crust from the warming event under 10cm of light fluffy snow. This crust disappears around 1800m with up to 50cm of recent storm snow that is stiff open areas from recent strong winds. Skiing was excellent above the crust elevation and pretty good dust on crust below that. It was snowing heavily in the afternoon with about 5cm on the sleds. We dug a pit at 2050m on a north aspect in one of the bigger treeline bowl features. We found multiple weak layers in the upper 120cm of snow, including 10mm surface hoar down 115 cm! Despite getting non propagating results on these layers with such a complex upper snowpack, we opted to ski a more mellow line. It feels like triggering persistent layers is pretty unlikely below treeline with the new crust, but as soon as that crust is absent, it’s still a pretty scary snowpack. It’s not go time up high, and it might be getting tough to stay diligent, but triggering large avalanches is definitely possible. Especially with weak layers above, step down avalanches could trigger these deeper layers. Enjoy the fresh pow, but stay safe out there!