Quick report
Beautiful day on the mountain to patrol with the Mount Rainier Nordic Patrol. Glad many people got to take advantage of the calm winds which died around 11 PM. Morning temperatures got to freezing around 11:30 AM at the base of Panorama Point. Southeast and south aspects eventually softened up but many places did not get enough solar input after many below freezing days. We dug a pit on a fully shaded 24° NW aspect at 5800’ near Dead Horse basin to take a look at the near surface facets above the 1/10. The snow remained very cold (-8C at 10 cm down) even with well above freezing temperatures. We observed surface hoar above very sugary 1-2mm faceted crystals down to the 1/10 which was 24 cm below the surface. We had non-propagating ECT results on this layer.
Avalanche
S apect below Skyline Ridge. R1, D1.5 reported in other observations