Toured up to 6800 near Essex. Intermittent graupel fell throughout the day, and could be found throughout the top 5-8 inches of newer snow. No evidence of the 12/14 raincrust, but in it's place we did have non-propagating failure in 2 pits on a graupel layer that I expect fell during the same time period. The 12/9 crust layer is stout, with sugary snow below sandwiched by a variable deeper thin crust. Winds were increasing through the day and stiffening the new storm snow at the ridge and in exposed zones. We skied N and S aspects on dense, supportable new snow, feeling the supportable crust below in less sheltered terrain. We dug into the snow on both aspects, with similar results.
