Good bonding of recent storm snow to Feb 14 rain crust on Polaris Point.

Touring Polaris Point today we encountered periodic snow showers ranging from S1 to S5 accumulation rate. Otherwise, no signs of snow surface warming on north aspects. Some areas of minor sun crust on south aspects along Ward Creek. We observed no signs of instability below treeline.

We dug a test pit on a NNW aspect at 7,300' in a large open area to look at the interface at the Feb 14 rain crust. This was located just over 3 feet down from the snow surface (HS 405cm, rc at 295cm). Were we unable to create any failures at the rain crust within the standard loading steps of the CT or DT. Additional "mule kicks" on the DT produced a fracture of RP character. Decomposed graupel and some very, very minimal signs of faceting were visible on top of the crust under magnification. No signs indicating this rain crust interface as a problematic layer. Below the rain crust was wet snow, still not fully refrozen.