Mount Howard to Aneroid Mt North

Started from McCulley trailhead. Booted for the first few miles up road to Howard Mt (mix of low coverage snow and bare road). Put on snowshoes around 7.2k' due to punchy snowpack. Shortcut up ridge to Peak 8494 (NW ridge), then walked the ridge to East Peak and Aneroid Mt North. Snow coverage was extremely low on west facing slopes (unsure if glide avalanches or rain took out the snowpack). The snow on the east side of ridges had a buried weak layer sandwiched between a 1F+ layer and a knife hard crust. Snowpack softened in afternoon, but the winds increased. Surface layer snowpack was stout, but punchy traversing from East Peak to Mount Howard. Snow coverage down the road from Mount Howard was low/mixed (lots of bare spots where the sun had melted the snow away).

Quick report