Intact surface hoar around Blue Lakes

Poor visibility today kept us in the trees between 8000ft and 8500ft, where in openings of all aspects, I found surface hoar intact under just a few inches of new snow. Shovel tilts were easy and clean - though not the classic pool table clean of a traditional Q1, likely because the surface hoar layers observed weren't perfectly planar, and there was so little difference in hand hardness between the old snow below and the new snow above. Winds were calm to light out of the NE with minimal wind transport observed, though we stayed near and below treeline due to poor viz. Freezing fog and light snow showers until skies changed to broken upon our departure at 3pm.

Pic 1: Obvious stripe everywhere I looked, in this case although the surface hoar feathers themselves aren't clear, the gap between old and new indicates intact surface hoar of several millimeters. This stripe wasn't perfectly planar, but extended as far to either side that I excavated. It looks like it's only a few inches wide just because that's how wide my crystal card is.

Pic 2: In another location close to a hilltop near 8500ft, light winds had scoured a small amount of the new snow on top of the buried surface hoar. This photo also shows the layer of near surface facets under the surface hoar. If you zoom in to the surface hoar, it looks like there is more than one layer from multiple formation events. The lower layer(s) appear to be fallen over, where the upper layer is intact enough to produce the gap.

Pic 3: Another stripe of surface hoar, with a stripe of fallen SH and near surface facets below that.