The sun emerges

We ran into two other parties on the Lookout trail on Mt Brown, and the universal consensus was that low-angle pow is the move.  There was plenty of room to spread on multiple laps, but the 6 of us did put some tracks on that SW shoulder.  

• Once out of the tree cover, we found 15 cm of new snow as far down as 4000'.  This increased to roughly 20 cm of F hardness freshies overlaying a thin MFcr on a S aspect at 5900'. Perhaps formed on Wednesday or whichever the sunny day was last week?  
• This 20 cm of non-wind affected new snow probably hid texture from windslabs that formed the past few days.  Where we did dig, 1400h NE slope at 7200', we found the windslab to be 4F hardness and failed at CTM11 (RP) down 40 cm on DF.  We found no cracking or collapsing throughout the day, or failures on small leeward test slopes.  
• At 7000' on a SW windward corner of the shoulder, we found an HS of 160.  ECTN13 dn 40 just above the new melt freeze crust (from Weds the 24th?).  And the notorious mid January weak layer failed ECTP29 down 95 cm on facets.  This crust seems to be decomposing there and another group that dug nearby found similar results.
• As much as we strained our eyes with remarkably good visibility in the afternoon, on Mt. Stanton, Vaught and Edwards, we couldn't find crowns.  Ridgeline cornices by the lookout were fresh for kicking, but did not have triggerable slopes below.