Variable surface conditions at Trimmer

Highly variable surface conditions, but no signs of instability observed around Trimmer today. Skinning up the Trimmer "Bonus" in the morning was challenging due to firm conditions, and where there was just a few inches of soft snow and it remained cold, there was some very early stage faceting oberved. But upon our departure this same snow was transitioning to wet. 

Trimmer proper held soft snow on top of a supportable crust. The top of the western slide path had almost 10" of soft snow with a thin breakable wind crust on top. Cracks did not propagate, but wind crust broke into large pieces about 2ft x 2ft. Towards the bottom of this path, soft snow was only a few inches deep and transitioning to wet. 

Pic: Moderate wind down low and Strong wind up high. Wind transport was observed in the area today, but windward slopes were already fairly stripped of available snow. No precip observed, but ominous, dark clouds were building in the early afternoon and from a distance it looked like Desolation was getting precip.