Silver Peak

Even though air temperatures remained cool, the intense April sun provided more than enough warmth to form wet snow on sunny slopes. Ski cuts triggered small sluffs of wet snow on E and SE aspects before noon between 7000 and 7500 ft. The wet snow was sliding off a refrozen crust about 6 inches thick. At the upper elevations, we could also feel the snow starting to get wet on sunny slopes. Cold snow still lingered in the shaded areas. 

In addition to the wet snow, we also saw signs of wind-loading over the last few days, such as drifted snow, cornices, and ripples on the snow surface. We kicked and ski-cut a few wind-loaded test slopes, but we only triggered minor, isolated cracking and no wind slab failures.

We triggered some small, shallow (4 in deep) cracks on one N-facing, wind-loaded slope near 8200 ft.