Facets, crusts, and NE wind on Angora

Faceted snow on top of supportable crust today at Angora. Slopes were generally sheltered from NE winds up to around 8200ft.

Pic 1: Near surface facets with small surface hoar, observed all along Angora Ridge Rd and all the way up to my high point of 8200ft. The SH got smaller and was mostly knocked over by around 8000ft.

Pic 2: NE winds scouring snow from Echo Peak. At times this snow plume was impressively tall, as were the plumes visible on distant peaks. Less dramatic in the afternoon.

Pic 3: Near 8200ft wind slabs from both SW and NE winds were encountered, but they were small. Right under my ski, this crack was 20cm deep down to facets, but tapered to shallow before ending.

Profile: Note the 55-60cm layer of wind slab was faceting at this location. Significant debris within this layer (pine needles and small branches) mark it as probably the very dense wind slab from just over 2 weeks ago. Only 1 Finger hard here due to faceting.