Virginia Lakes

Today we took a short tour in the Virginia Lakes area up to 10,500 ft on E-NE aspects. We encountered variable surface conditions and light to moderate SW winds that decreased in the afternoon.

Semi-sheltered terrain near and below treeline held a combo of soft near surface facets, windboard and crust. Above treeline in the Red Lake Bowl area has been hit heavily by winds and the surface shows firm, sculpted snow and old raised tracks.

At around 10,000' we touched some SE facing snow near trees that had softened by midday and was moist on the surface. No wet loose instability was observed. We did not get to solar slopes above tree line, but I would suspect that surface softening was limited by winds. Small amounts of snow could be seen swirling around near ridgetops.

Old avalanche debris from December or early January was visible on the frozen surface of Red Lake.

No signs of instability observed.