Waterhouse Peak

Descending the upper thousand feet of horrendous breakable crust on Waterhouse this afternoon, I chuckled at how bad the snow quality was. Then I got a little lower and the quality became even worse and I needed all my concentration to make it down at all. There was a breakable crust from the ~9400' summit of Waterhouse down to Grass Lake at ~7700. The snow under the breakable crust for the upper thousand feet was fairly supportive, but for the bottom ~500' the snow underneath was wet unsupportive mank.  Ascending there were small patches of firm snow (sometimes from tree melt and sometimes maybe in an opening that got colder overnight) but mostly it was soft breakable crust until around 8500' when the crust became more stout. Runnels were visible from about 9200' to the lake. 

I stopped and dug a pit on a NE aspect around 9200'. The heigh of snow in my pit was 120 cms which seems low considering the elevation and the amount of precip. There was a shiny crust on the surface, new snow, a new rain crust, new snow and a stout old crust with facets under it. The snow at this elevation was drier than I would have expected, since rain had clearly fallen on it. I was surprised that I didn't see more activity in my pit tests. 

In case it gets colder and actual snow falls soon, it is worth noting that the middle of Grass Lake has a lot of standing water and this may take some time to freeze solid. I walked out to the end of it to take a photo and look at the north bowl on Powderhouse and the amount of water out there is impressive. Also, there is water underneath white snow on the edges of the lake so it's conceivable one could go for an unintended swim.