Crusty

Out for rescue training and snowpit practice with FAC volunteers in the Southern Whitefish Range: Apart from a few old and thin wind slabs, the snow structure here remains generally harmless at the moment but has a number of weak layers to keep an eye on. 

• The structure is largely a stack of crust/ facet/ crust layers of varying thickness and hardness. See profile.
• We found buried surface hoar preserved in the upper snowpack, except in a few exposed SW facing slopes, where it appears that wind or sun got to it first. 
• There were a few thin, hard wind slabs from previous NE winds that are still producing unstable results above the surface hoar.  The last few inches of new snow have veiled the distribution of these older slabs, but my impression from limited poking around is that they are isolated and in small pockets near exposed terrain.