Widespread faceted snow around Pickett Peak.

   I toured around Pickett Peak today to see the status of conditions and the progression of facets within the snow pack. The coverage in this area was fair as most aspects are north facing; however, there was a lot of obstacles to hit on the way down. Snow conditions varied depending on relationship to the sun and elevation. Most solar aspects and some shaded aspects below 8000' had a melt freeze crust but also had weak sugary snow below it. Above 8000' shaded aspects held large faceted snow grains and was present from the ground up within the 30-45cms of snow. The suns impact above 8000' on South facing aspects had melted the snow all the way to the ground exposing dirt. I dug a few hasty pits along the way and the facets are well developed with large angulation on the grains. The development was present even in some cases old wind slabs and wind effected snow had softened up and turned to sugary snow. The ride down was actually fun but I skied very apprehensively as hitting obstacles was inevitable so I kept it slow and avoided obvious bulges in the snow. There was was no other signs of slabs or other instabilities along my tour.