Castle Peak

We toured in to Frog Lake today via the south slopes of Castle Peak. The highlight of the day was the beautiful filtered light from the valley fog that occassionally rose up in our area. We observed about 6 inches of new snow in wind sheltered areas. The snow was relatively wind packed even in the trees. In most locations below the new snow was a pencil hard crust. The open south flanks of Castle had patches of soft new snow intermixed with patches of hard rain crust. Climbing up a treed north facing slope above Frog Lake we observed some cracking at the bast of the new snow on undercut switchbacks. This cracking did not extend much beyond the length of our skis.  Looking at the east bowl on Castle Peak from a distance we did not observe any previous avalanche activity.