A new weak layer is born

Went to the far northern corner of the Whitefish Range hunting for instabilities. We also found a new concerning weak layer in the making. 

• We found widespread surface hoar growth above 5700’ that grew larger in grain size with increasing elevation all the way to the summit at 7,300’.  The surface hoar is growing on top of cohesionless, small-grained near surface facets. All of this nasty business is on top of a melt freeze crust at mid elevations and wind board at upper elevations, the remnants from last weekend’s warm and windy weather.
• The early season facet layers, buried 3 feet deep by dense slabs at upper elevations, were noticeably larger and weaker here than what I have seen in the Southern Whitefish Range. We were a bit surprised to get consistent propagating ECT results on these layers on various aspects at upper elevations. We weren’t surprised, at that point, to notice a natural persistent slab that ran last weekend, D2.5
• Despite a lack of signs of instability, our unstable pit results paired with a not-so-old persistent slab crown trumped the green in today’s forecast. We chose uniform, planar, and well anchored slopes at upper elevations before dropping into steeper terrain at mid elevations, where the snowpack structure wasn’t alarming with its stout surface crust and lack of much slab below.