General observations on Echo Peak

Toured up to the top of the trees on the NE ridge of Echo this afternoon and dug a quick pit to see the depth of new snow, and whats underneath it. Found 170cm of new snow sitting right side up. Beneath that was a thick, roughly one inch melt freeze crust. I didn't have the time to dig a big enough pit to really insepct the underlying weak snow, but from what i could grab in my small sample it still seemed slighly loose, but certainly more cohesive than samples of the faceted snow I had come accross in the Waterhouse/Powderhouse area at similar elevation and aspects over the last couple of weeks. Otherwise the snowpack was looking great with no signs of instability. A few sharks still lurking on the more eastern aspects. Below about 7,000' is starting to firm up a little after daytime warming yesterday and today.