Freel Peak

Our goal was to check out snow conditions in the northerly alpine terrain and get a feel for the melt on solar aspects. On our tour up, we experience the smorgasboard of surface conditions consistent with the rest of the forecast area. This ranged from near surface facets, breakable crust, supportable meltfreeze layers, wind board and punchy wind skins. The bowl showed  stories of old wind-affect. Today's SE wind was not transporting snow on the ridges but was eroding the surface snow in the bowl and transporting small amounts of snow downslope. The downslope winds were chewing away at some older wind affected areas, forming wind drifts and some surface wind skins(3-5cm of wind packed snow). Hand shear tests showed that these were reactive but they were shallow in the bowl, we were not concerned. The skiing was a couple steps better than wind board. It was very specific as you had to find zones where there was softer snow and even this was still a little bumpy from underlying wind affect. Overall we rode cautiously due to variable snow surfaces.

Solar aspects around 10500 had firm, barely grippable wind board that never heated up with the sun and stayed firm. Mid slope snow softened later in the day with about 6 cm of ski penetration. Shaded spots still held on to the breakable crusts or ice patches and there were a few sticky spots. It was fun but it isn't quite corn yet.

The biggest concerns today included the variable surface snow and quickly changing snow conditions as patches of snow saw the sun and then didn't. We could hear creeks running and could still see some open creeks around 8500 ft. 

I probed the snowpack at a variety of locations in the North Bowl. HS was 50 cm 100 feet below the ridge at 10500 ft. HS averaged 175cm  with the strong mid pack starting at 55cm.