Apgar Mountains

-Good Traveling in the flats during the approach. 3-4 inches of low density snow on top of a supportable crust. Increasingly difficult traveling between 4000'-5500' during the climb up to the ridge. Much of the climb up to the main ridge was on slopes that were blown down to the rain crust with less than one inch of new snow present. This made for very difficult skinning conditions and I switched to bootpacking around 4700'. Bootpacking was also difficult. The crust was mostly breakable and my steps broke down into the facets beneath the crust. Bootpacking did however provide opportunities to observe variability in the rain crust layer. The crust varied from 5 inches to 8 inches thick, and appeared to be comprised of two layers. The interface in the middle of the crust might be a result of a lapse in precip, with continued wind, during the wednesday-thursday rain event. -This crust was prevalent up to 6000' where the skiing conditions began to improve. Of course I only made it a few hundred feet higher, so I did not get to observe much of these improved conditions. The best skiing was found on relatively sheltered, lower angle slopes. On steeper slopes, the new snow had been blown into isolated pockets and was also actively sluffing, leaving a scrapey surface in its wake.