Upper Ophir Creek

We toured N-NE-E-SE aspect terrain in the upper Ophir creek area between 8,200' and 9,200'. We encountered the expected mix of well developed near surface facets on moderately to heavily shaded northerly aspects and melt-freeze conditions on E-SE aspects. This biggest standout today was that despite the moderate speed SW winds, the SE aspects that we traveled had up to one inch of wet snow on the surface by the late morning/midday hours. Cloud cover in this area was also fairly limited with large amounts of blue sky overhead. More snow surface melt was observed in this area than was anticipated.