We have rode the last few days and have found some great riding conditions. The new snow over the last week is dense but has smoothed out the riding surface and covered a lot of rocks and tree stumps (although we have still hit many rocks and stumps with our sleds in the last few days especially near idgelines).

We dug a pit today on a 21 degree, north east facing slope at around 8100 feet. There was about 4 feet of snow on the ground and the Persistent Weak Layer (PWL) seems to be healing and becoming less sensitive. The slab on top of the PWL is around three feet thick where we dug the pit and is so solid that it is doubtful that a skier could affect the weak layer (unless you were in an area with a thinner slab). I feel like sleds could probably still get the slab to collapse but it is getting more difficult all the time. Our pit tests showed a weak layer at about 12 inches from the surface and I got Compression test failures at 15 taps. The entire column eventually gave way at the faceted snow near the ground after several hits from the shoulder. The Extended Column Test did not produce any propagation failures.