Upside-down storm snow, wind slabs, and small buried surface hoar on Rubicon Peak.

Ascending the north slopes of Rubicon Peak, upside-down storm snow of 4F hard over F hard was prominent at all elevations the peak. Several hand pits dug during the ascent revealed small surface hoar at 2mm grain size at the old snow'storm snow interface. As we reached near treeline terrain below the summit, we began to trigger longer and deeper shooting cracks. We stopped to dig out one of these cracks and found that the fracture went down about 1.5 feet to buried surface hoar. The overlying slab was composed of wind slab and the upside-down storm snow. Of interest the buried surface hoar found today on Rubicon Peak was much smaller than the buried surface hoar observed yesterday on nearby Jake's Peak.