The snowpack in this area is deep and very difficult to dig through mostly consisting of pencil hard snow.

Wide open alpine face.

From the trailhead we ascended to Arapahoe Lakes along the usual trail. We traveled across rolly terrain to the north of the the lakes and up to Frosty ridge and the Continental divide. We descended the same way.

Below treeline there is about 150cm of snow which varies from zero slab where the trees are tighter to a slab in more open areas. There was a weak layer down about 40cm but this layer was not very reactive.
Near and above treeline the snow was fairly consistently deep. Probing over a mile of terrain on a variety of aspects and elevations the shallowest I probed was about 150cm and the deepest was 350cm. The average was around 180 - 200cm. In these areas the snowpack felt very firm with very little changes in density and no sudden pop at the base of the snowpack.
In the two snowpits we dug near treeline and the one above treeline we did find a weak layer down about 50-60cm. In all tests results were either hard, did not propogate on a single loading step or the fracture went up through the slab. All these layers were rounding facets mixed with some decomposing grains. With warm weather and a deep snowpack this layer will continue to round.

Easterly winds were transporting snow at ridgeline but otherwise a beautiful and I mean beautiful day!