Limited new snow settlement at Blue Lakes

Clear, cold, and calm day in the greater Blue Lakes area, with imited signs of new snow settlement. No distinct settlement cones observed near trees, though where the recent snow just above the facets was Fist hard on 12/24, the first few cm above the facets are now 4F-. I returned to the same sites as on 12/24 (Upper Blue, Tamarack Juntion, and Indian Valley), and although snowpack structure remains largely the same, formal column tests showed less propagation potential today than on 12/24. Adjacent to where on 12/24 CTs were showing Sudden Planar results at the new/old interface, today's CTs were Progressive Compression within the recent snow (2 layers of buried grauple), and by the time I got the column to fail on the facets, my shovel was through the unconsolidated recent snow and into the facets. Several ECTs at the same sites as 12/24 also failed to propagate today.  Shovel shears and hand shears were much less clean and easy than on 12/24.