Variable conditions on Pickett Peak

     I toured up towards Pickett Peak, the air temps were well below freezing keeping surface snow cold and soft throughout the tour. The wind was blowing at light speeds out of the east with bigger gusts transporting snow at times in near tree line terrain. In protected areas within treeline I found one inch of new snow on top of breakable melt freeze crusts and old cold soft snow. The new snow was not bonding to the crusts yet. I hiked up to 7600' and dug a pit on a NW aspect. There was a clear layer of near surface facets about 20cms down, this layer was fist hard, dry, and had well developed facets within it. Recent new snow above it is consolidating and forming somewhat of a slab that showed planar results within my compression test. My extended column test had no propagation on this layer at all. As I climbed up to near treeline terrain wind effected snow was more widespread in open and exposed areas and transporting snow was observed. I walked around trying to locate winds slabs in these exposed ares but didnt come across any of significant size. The ride down was variable with areas of powder turns and breakable crusts, no turns resulted in any snow movement at all.