Snowpit observations from Incline Peak drainage

Toured up the Ginny Lake drainage on the north side of Incline Peak today with the goal of digging a pit to check out the 1/4 crust after this most recent storm. In the morning, snow surface on N/NE facing slopes below treeline was soft and light, E-facing slopes below treeline had developed a slight melt-freeze skin from yesterday. Dug a pit on a NE facing slope at 8800 ft on a 23 degree slope in widely spaced trees. High clouds, sun poked out the later the morning went on, no wind, air temp was above freezing at our pit location (~40 degrees). Saw similar results to the obs posted from 1/18 on the east side of Mt Rose; our single pit had a total depth of 150 cm, with the top 30 cm being new snow (fist to 4F) on top of a decomposing 1/4 crust with facets (small though, more like angular rounds, fist) beneath. We saw no results from an ECT (ECTX), but saw failure of the new snow layer on top of the decomposing crust in an isolated column test (CT18 SC). We may have been a little high in elevation to see a more prominent crust. We only felt some localized collapsing of the snowpack below 8600 in open, flatter areas when skinning up and skiing out. Skied low angle N/NE slopes from 9400 ft, snow quality was still great for skiing on those aspects above 8500 ft. Snow on NE/E aspects below 8500 ft was starting to get a little gloppy and temperature affected by 11 AM.