Mean Mr. Custard

We a saw few signs of instability in the northern Whitefish range today as the surface snow moistened. We were looking for weak layers and surface conditions before more weather heads our way. What we found was an upper snowpack a lot like a custard pie, with some extra sugar above the crust.

• Sticky skinning. High humidity and cloudy skies trapped a lot of heat at the top of the snowpack. The surface on all aspects where we traveled was moist and rollerballs were easy to kick off of steep slopes, though few entrained any snow.
• Despite the surface melting we found big surface hoar preserved in areas safe from the wind and recent sunshine.
• We found old, hard wind slabs that were unreactive on test slopes.
• Under those various surfaces we found about 8 inches or loose dry faceted snow sitting atop a hard crust. There's no slab on top of these weak layers yet, the facets and surface hoar, but we will be paying attention to how much new snow falls above them.

We had no qualms skiing steep terrain today, so long as we didn't knock each other over with rollerballs. Skiing the custard ain't easy. Pictures, etc. soon...