Quick report
We sought corn and found it. We left Carson Pass mid-morning and headed south on firm surfaces on all aspects towards Round Top and the Sisters. There was a good refreeze in the region. On the approach, we noticed locally southern surfaces starting to soften. Once we were on the ridge to the saddle between Round Top and the Sisters, we experienced very firm surfaces and decided to use ski crampons. At the saddle, the top ridgeline was bare of snow. We traveled SW under the peak of the Sisters on foot, on rocks, until we reached the SW face. We descended the SW face of the Sisters at 12:45 pm. The snow was supportable, and enjoyable, with a ski pen of 3 cm and a boot pen of 7 cm. We skinned up over the saddle between Fourth of July and the unnamed 9800 ft peak NW of Sisters West. At about 2 pm, we descended a SW/W face of the unnamed peak, and the snow was good and enjoyable, similar in quality to the SW face of the Sisters. We regained the ridge that leads to the saddle between Round Top and the Sisters, transitioned, and from there, descended/worked our way east to Winnemucca Lake and north to Carson Pass. We saw three high elevation lakes today: Round Top, Winnemucca, and Caples. All appeared to be melting out. We saw little evidence of wet loose activity today. We did see some old wet slab activity on north faces.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 50s
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Snow Avail For Transport
- none
Beautiful and hot day. In the sun, it felt like May.
Snowpack
South faces softening with hard supportable snow underneath by midday. Ski pen 3 cm, boot pen 7 cm at 12:45pm on SW face of Sisters. On approach, North faces above 9000 ft were hard, and ski crampons were useful on the ridge ascent to the saddle between Round Top and the Sisters.