Teocalli

Unlike what I've observed with other major warmups in years past, an atypical snow surface seemed to prevent significant wet loose instabilities from developing and was limiting meltwater percolation where we traveled. We didn't observe any avalanche wet activity despite very warm temperatures.  Above treeline this afternoon, water was flowing off of rocks and into the snowpack at the rate of a small bathroom faucet.  

There is a thick (1 cm+) ice crust a few inches below the snow surface, which kept the snowpack supportive into the afternoon and appeared to be sealing off meltwater percolation where we dug.  My guess is this is the 2/25 freezing rain crust (what was a relatively thin ice lens), which has thickened through iterations of freewater pooling and refreezing above it.  The small amount of snow above the crust was very wet or slushy today, making for nice supportive riding conditions, but I didn't find freewater draining beyond it deeper into the snowpack.  We passed a rock band that was causing an alarming amount of water to flow somewhere into the snowpack, or maybe just the ground.  At low elevations, the crust is also present, but the lower snowpack is moist to wet: ski pen remained supportive while boot pen and snowmobile pen would often punch through into a cohesionless mess below.   Snow surfaces remained dry above treeline on northerlies and looked uninvitingly firm, a mix of wind board and the old rain crust.