Beehive Lake

The snowpack has settled into a nice spring freeze-thaw regime for now. Wet snow hazards observed today were small and confined to steeper terrain. While some traveled far down the slope, they did not show evidence of wanting to entrain additional snow volume. Light snow showers added a nice dry snow cap on top of wetter, more spring-like snow, and provided nice corn conditions.

Fast and efficent travel this morning thanks to firm snow surfaces. The snow surface did soften from daytime warming and extended sunshine, but only became punchy in the afternoon the closer we descended to 5,000 feet - this is the general lower terminus of continuous snow cover to pose broader avalanche risk. Once we reached around 6,000 feet, we started to encounter snowfall from April 27. Initially, recent snowfall was only an inch or so deep. As we climbed above the lake level (~6,500 feet), recent new snow depths increased to 3 to 4 inches. By our top elevation at 7,500 feet, we were traveling through drifts 6 to 8 inches deep along the lee sides of ridges. Snow surfaces at mid and upper elevations also had around an inch of drier snow from this morning that capped the moist-wet snow from April 27. Despite today's warm up, the moist near-surface snow was stubborn to push downhill with ski pressure outside slow rollerball action. We did spot a couple small wet slides likely from yesterday when the recent snowfall saw sun and warmth for the first time. Softening corn slabs were abundant in larger openings and on steep convex rolls with some cracks spiderwebbing 10 or 15 feet around us. These were only an inch or two thick and generally harmless where we encountered them. Snow cover is quickly depleting across the landscape. Each time we make it back into the mountains, more creeks and marshy areas have opened up, and falling into a large open cavern around trees and cliff faces is becoming its own hazard.