New snow on facets at Blue Lakes

 15-45cm of new snow observed on top of facets throughout the greater Blue Lakes area today. I did not travel above treeline, nor on sunny aspects due to thin cover. No natural avalanches observed. No cracking on test slopes, though I was very conservative today and all test slopes were small and well supported. Several quick mitt pits showed easy shears on new snow/old snow interface, with the old snow as 2mm facets on top of the Dec 15th rain crust. This same structure was evident by my track sliding out when accelerating during sidehilling and making sharp turns.

Pic 1: Every place I looked had an "obvious grey stripe" like this. I found the facets buried under new snow from 15cm to 45cm deep. Although CTs were consistently sudden planar, the only ECTs I got to propagate were where the most new snow was. Both on shady slopes: 1x ECTP 8 down 38cm and 1x ECTP 11 down 45cm. ECTs with 25cm of new snow and less did not propagate. Both the facets above the rain crust and the storm snow were Fist hard, with no wind slab observed in pits, but evidence of wind transport was observed from a distance.

Pic 2: Although snow showers (S1 with brief moments of S2) limited visibility, occasional breaks provided views to above treeline terrain, which did show evidence of recent though previous wind loading.