Quick report
I went out for a short solo tour up Rubicon this morning, opting to stay out of avalanche terrain given the new snow accumulation and traveling solo. There was about 4” of new snow below 7500ft, enough to hide sharks from view but not enough to fully cover them. As I ascended the skin track this layer of new snow gradually increased in depth to 8-10” off the summit ridge. The new snow was dry and unconsolidated with no signs of slab formation above treeline as late as my last lap off the top at 10:30. It sluffed off the old crust quite easily under my skis during a few ski kicks on small convexities off the ridge but remained unconsolidated. The skiing above 7500’ was sublime on this dry storm snow. The last couple hundred feet back down to the car were slightly treacherous as buried obstacles were quite difficult to see. Precip was on and off throughout my tour, varying from pockets of sunshine to moderate snowfall. No meaningful accumulation during the 3 hours I was out. Winds were surprisingly civilized throughout the morning and I didn’t observe any significant wind transport of new snow.