Still Blowing, but Not Quite Going

Met some friends to look for soft, stable skiing on my day off.

• Moderate west winds were still blowing snow onto leeward aspects and stiffening slabs above about 5500 feet. We were unable to trigger any of these slabs on test slopes or with ski cuts, though cornices were reactive to stomping. We could knock off chunks 6-14" thick.
• Despite continuous wind, only the tops of fetches were stripped bare. Stronger winds will still have some snow to play with in areas with large expanses of soft snow on windward slopes. More snow overnight will be more fuel for that fire.
• We found the 12/14 rain crust to around 6400 feet where it becomes very thin, almost imperceptible. There are weak facets between the 12/14 crust and the deeper crust buried on 12/9.
• We didn't find any buried surface hoar in many hand pits.
• We got occasional, localized, cracking in soft (F hard) storm slabs where the snowpack was shallow and the surface snow was slightly upside-down.

We skied low angled terrain where the wind had stiffened the snow into storm slabs. Once in sheltered terrain we were comfortable skiing steep slopes and only had some minor sluffing to manage.