Snow pit below Black Mountain

On our skin up to the bench below Black Mountain through the trees, no whumpfing or cracks were seen or heard, and a hand shear test found the new snow layer to be somewhat stubborn to slide over the older layer beneath. Stomping over convex rolls and along wider open slopes produced no reaction in the snowpack. At our snow pit at 10200ft on a NE aspect, HS was 140cm; 18cm of new snow was found over alternating layers of melt freeze crusts and 4F snow, while deeper layers seemed to be relatively consolidated and stable.  Layer of concern was at 104cm, where a buried melt freeze crust covered a 4F layer, which produced a CT13 PC result. We continued to skin up a bit further and found the new snow beginning to bond with the older layer underneath.  On our ski down through the trees, another 7cm had accumulated and we were skiing pow without breaking through any of the crust layers below.