Blowing facets at Meiss

Very windy and cold day at Meiss, with winds stripping weak snow from E/NE aspects and redistributing it in irregular patterns. We were hoping to find some good facet skiing in the many narrow wind loaded gullies in this area, but they held a mix of facets, exposed January rain crust, and exposed facets from below the January rain crust. We couldn't find any terrain features with consistent, smooth facets at the surface. Sunny aspects in this area were highly textured from a combo of wind erosion and sun cupping, making for horrible skiing.

Pic 1: Any features exposed to today's winds were being stripped of surface facets, and even stripped of the January rain crust and the facets below it.

Pic 2: The January rain crust above my ski tip, with the facets below eroded by winds.

Pic 3: Wind drifted facets made for good turns but weren't regularly distributed enough for more than a few good turns in a row.

Pic 4: A mini slab failure of wind packed facets on top of weaker facets. Nowhere did we find big enough patches of this structure to be of concern today.