Breccia

Snowfall increased in the afternoon with short periods of heavy snowfall. Storm totals upon departure at 15:00 were 4-5" in upper elevations. Strong SW wind was forming shallow, reactive slabs in upper elevations (especially above treeline). Visible snow transport across ridgelines with fresh drifts forming.

New snow is falling on a melt freeze crust (buried Jan 2nd) on southerly aspects. This coud create a hard bed surface for new snow avalanches to fail on and worth tracking through the upcoming storm. Did not observe much near surface faceting below the new snow on northerly aspects. Poor visibility and no recent avalanches observed. 

Upper elevations above treeline on leeward slopes.

Dug a few snowpits to investigate the buried weak layers. We found either fairly decent structure or healing characteristics. Part of this coud be that we traveled in an area with realtively deep snowpack. Wind scoured slopes that are shallow or middle elevations could certainly be more of a concern. 

9500' NW aspect: HS 160cm ECTX weak snow formed in November is buried 120cm. Facets and some depth hoar are rounding, moist, 2-3mm. (3/5 Lemons)

9700' S aspect: HS 112cm ECTN1 on melt freeze crust (1/2). There was a crust near the base of the snowpack that did not have any concerning grains above or below and was bonding well. Very resistant shovel shear. The 1/2 melt freeze crust is worth tracking as I observed small 0.5mm facets below. It's also a double crust sandwhich which could drive faceting between the two crusts.