More crusts than on a Thanksgiving Dessert Table

Assessing the early season snowpack in the Flathead traveling on westerly facing slopes to high elevations. 

• We found generally good stability. Tuesday's storm left 6" to 8" of incohesive snow on a widespread rain crust.  In isolated areas near ridgeline, northeasterly winds had formed dense drifts up to a foot thick, but they appeared to be bonding well and were stubborn to ski cuts.  I was able to produce one 5' crack after kicking on dozens of pillows.  The new snow became moist on steep, sunbaked slopes, resulting in a few harmless sluffs.
• The snowpack structure consists of a stack of crusts mixed with facets between.  The most worrisome interface for future loading events is the snow surface.  We observed large surface hoar growth on all but southerly aspects and near surface faceting in the new snow.  All of this overlies a hard rain crust, which gets thinner with elevation..  
• Sunday's rain event produced a minor wet loose cycle and Tuesday's snow storm produced a minor dry avalanche cycle, from D1 to D2 in size.  Details in avalanche tab. 
• We felt comfortable skiing in steep terrain while avoiding obvious drifts of harder, thicker snow for both higher quality snow and to avoid an unwanted tangle with a hard wind slab.  .