Echo Lake

Felt like winter in the Echo Lakes area today. We toured up the Talking Mt. ridge. We found sufficient snow for travel and evidence of previous wind and blowing snow.  Winds were light to moderate from the South along the ridge and felt colder than anticipated. There are several trees down in the burned areas of this approach but fewer trees seem to have fallen than in other areas of the Caldor. The cornice along the top of Talking Mt. had many small chunks that had broken earlier. None of these we observed had triggered slab avalanches below.  We only encounterd uncohesive soft snow descending Talking Mt. Ascending the sunny side of Flagpole we observed small roller ball activity during a sunny spell. The terrain we were passing through has a lot of partially covered granite, so it was a prime roller ball zone. Exiting over Flagpole we found soft snow in the shade but breakable crust and some wind deposits at lower elevations that had received sun.