Serious powder detective work

We put in a decent amount of effort to find the powder in this wind destroyed land. It does exist in isolated sheltered areas in the lee of tree bands, but only up to about 1200m. 1200m to valley bottom can actually provide quite deep powder turns in these rare sheltered areas. All other areas were wind affected with a variety of unpredictable surfaces, but no signs of instability. Surface hoar was widespread. Many of the avalanche paths had sluffed or produced small storm slabs from their steepest sections during the last storm cycle. One crown line was visible below treeline in a NE facing path but had been snowed or blown in since. Looks like the dreamy winter wonderland that once was has been replaced by good old familiar white pass wind effect.