Castle Crag (Peak 9,773')

We toured Castle Crag (Peak 9,773) and Incline Peak this morning, focusing mainly on solar aspects and the developing wet loose avalanche problem. By the late morning hours, size D1 wet loose avalanches were easy to intentionally trigger below about 9,000' using ski cuts on the steep ESE to S aspects that we traveled. Only to top 2 to 3 inches of the recent storm snow were involved during the morning hours, limiting avalanche size to D1. It was clear that D size could increase during the afternoon hours as warming progressed and more of the recent storm snow became wet on solar aspects.

Shaded northerly aspects were escaping snow surface melt, especially with the cool NE wind on the ridgetops.

Size D1 wet loose avalanches became easy to trigger during the late morning hours below about 9,000'.