Slide Mountain

We toured on the south side of Slide Mountain this morning. On our ascent we noted melt-freeze snow surface conditions on all E-S-W aspect terrain. The NW to N aspect slopes that we traveled had escaped previous melt in all but low angle areas. By 11 am, we were able to easily initiate wet loose instability on E aspect test slopes off of the south summit of Slide Mountain at 9,650'. These wet loose failures on test slopes involved the top 2 inches of surface snow. Below the surface wet snow, the bed surface was colder, wind packed snow that had yet to undergo a melt-freeze cycle.

We were able to travel ski supportable snow surfaces down to Ophir Creek using previously wind packed S to SE aspect slopes that held mostly a half to one inch of surface wet snow.