clear skies and cornices

With full sun and rising freezing levels to 2000 m we were expecting south-facing slopes to be soft and sticky but were pleasantly surprised to find roughly 10 cm of dry soft snow. Moderate to strong southwest wind was keeping the surfaces cool and driving soft snow into the atmosphere rather than building wind slabs. There was some isolated wind affected snow at the ridge that was stiff and hollow sounding mixed with sustrugi. But no shooting cracks and very isolated distribution. Cornices are large and overhanging in this area, something to keep an eye on. The facets formed during the January drought remain a concern on north-facing slopes where there is no supportive melt-freeze crust. This layer is becoming more stubborn, there were no new avalanches in the area, and we had no results in our snowpack tests.