Difficult surface hoar hunting at Blue Lakes

Flat light and large plated stellars on the surface made hunting for surface hoar difficult today. I stopped in several areas where I suspected surface hoar would be, and couldn't find anything conclusive. 

The morning was very cold and windy, with plumes of snow visible from surrounding peaks, and wind textured surfaces in openings among the trees we were using to help with riding in flat light. On several small test slopes, I could get a very thin wind layer to break loose, but no propagating cracks were observed. No recent avalanches were observed on the steep and wind loaded paths we could see, but on many of them there was older debris buried by additional storm snow.

Winds decreased mid-day, and high cloud cover also slowed movement. Temperatures increased slightly, but were still cold by Tahoe standards. Signs of settlement were seen on most trees, and throughout our day we noticed the quality and challenge of riding change due to settlement, with the afternoon noticeably easier to ride steeper terrain without instant stucks.

Lots of water was still flowing in creeks and flooding meadows, indicating the rain soaked snow hasn't entirely refrozen yet.