Trace of New Snow on Carson Pass

With the weather forecast calling for this storm to bring new snow and favoring the southern part of the forecast region, we headed down to Carson Pass to see if we could find some good snow conditions.  We were disappointed when we showed up to the Elephants Hump trailhead to find a trace of new snow.  The forecasted snow totals did not materialize overnight and into today nor did the forecasted strong South winds.  While touring through this area we noticed that the wet punchy and unsupportable snow that has been present for the last week has started to refreeze.  We saw surface crusts ranging from 2 to 4'' deep.  Wet snow still exists below this surface crust and will take additional time and below freezing temperatures to fully refreeze.  Up towards the top of our tour above 9000', there was up to 1'' of new snow present with calm to light south winds.  Snow conditions were a mix of firm snow surfaces with light dust on crust.  We had some very small cracking in a couple areas where previous winds had blown small amounts of snow to form very small wind slabs.  We dug several snowpits in this area just below 9000' and were able to find the old Feb 14 faceted layer.  At these locations it had become wetted last week and then refrozen making for a consolidated and strong layer with no unstable snowpack test results.