Hiked to 4800' and then skinned to 6000' to have a look at the snow delivered over the last week.
SW aspects above 5000' were either wind-packed or scoured with only minor drifting. An inch or two of recent snow was found above the very supportable early March crust.
A sheltered NW aspect had 4 to 6 inches of F hard snow from the 4/2 and 4/4 showers. This layer was poorly bonded to the early March crust and hand pit tests slid pretty easily on a thin graupel layer observed on 4/1. The snow was loose enough to sometimes just fall apart when force was applied.
On this NW aspect sluffs were noticed on slope angles approaching 35 deg where the snow only traveled ~10 feet when loaded up with a hard edge. Steeper areas on this aspect would probably have slid more seriously but this was not tested.
The sun began breaking through around 11:30 as temps climbed to above freezing. Took off prior to the snow becoming moist and did not see any wet activity today. An isolated area of numerous chunks (photo) was probably initiated by a pillow blowing out of the rocks during our recent wind event.
