If you can't take the snow, stay off the Kitchner

We headed up to 1300m today on the shoulder of Mt Kitchener. The open areas were quite wind affected, while the snow was still soft and light where it was sheltered. There is widespread surface hoar that was standing tall and unaffected by the recent sun and light winds. This is going to be at the front of our minds with the next storm coming in, our only chances of destroying it are where we get significant rainfall. To make things even trickier, this hoar frost is sitting on a 2cm crust in exposed areas.