Castle/Andesite Unconsolidated New Snow

We toured around Andesite's East aspect today and found surprisingly good conditions. PS was 5-10 cm at all elevations from trailhead to summit. Cornices had formed from west winds on Andesite ridge, but there were no signs of cohesive wind slabs on lee aspects until within 200 ft of the summit ridge. These slabs ranged from 1-15 cm in depth, but did not consolidate into sizable blocks. Hand shear test results at 7500 ft were hard to pull and test slopes at 7800 ft at treeline showed no signs of instability.