South Side Castle Peak

We went to the south side of Castle Peak today.  Recent warm temperatures and sunny skies have melted out most of this area with limited snow coverage for recreation. Elevations below 8400' on southerly aspects have intermittent snow coverage with large areas of rock and dirt showing.  Below 7500', very limited snow exists with large areas of granite rock and dirt present.  This route requires a fair amount of route finding and walking to connect the snow patches that remain. Sun exposed slopes were becoming wet and mushy at 9:30am and unsupportable shortly thereafter. Northerly aspects have much better snow coverage in this area, especially above 7500-8000'.  These aspects still remained firm into the late morning hours with pretty unsmooth surface conditions.  By midday, snow conditions on southerly aspects were mostly unsupportable mush with sticky snow.

Unsupportable snow surface conditions occurred quickly this morning with a poor overnight refreeze of the snow surface. Roller balls and small loose wet avalanches occurred in steeper terrain.