Lakes Basin

It was a beautiful day for a walk in the Crystal area. Firmer surfaces early in the morning eventually gave way to the sunshine and softened mid-morning. Under tree cover, I don't know that they ever froze last night. There's a lot of signs of wet avalanche activity out there - rollerballs, pinwheels, snow shedding from rocks, drippy cornices, but most slides I saw were on the small side. Traveling on established skin tracks or sun-exposed slopes was easy enough, but once you move toward shaded slopes, breaking trail was arduous with plenty of clumping on my skins as I transitioned between shadows and sun touched surfaces. On dark shaded slopes I still found enjoyable soft skiing and even the sun-exposed slopes were skiing well enough in the late morning hours. By the time I exited the field around 3:30, the ski down was horrendous with deep moist snow and very challenging travel. 

The upper snowpack is variable, but mostly moist and heavy. On true shaded northerlies, you can still find well settled drier snow, but those areas are getting few and far between. Although plenty of wind effect is noticeable from earlier this week,  I was unable to find any areas touchy enough to produce an avalanche.