Observation: Bald Mtn Pass

Mirror Lake Highway is closed and snow packed from Soapstone up. Low elevation very thin with 1 to 2 feet of snow in the upper elevations. Still lots of rocks up high and between the wind, warm temps and overall lack of snow there is not a lot of connectivity on most slopes in the area. I encountered no surface hoar in my travels but the overall snow surface was weakening. South facing slopes were melt/freeze crust (where there was snow) and I observed a crust sandwich on many upper elevation south faces. This was small (1mm) grain facets sandwiched between two 1" thick melt/freeze crusts. Pit tests reflected moderate effort to fail but shears were not clean and did not fail with a lot of energy.

Clouds kept solar aspects somewhat cool and were still mostly frozen. No surface hoar in the areas I traveled but near surface faceting occurring in all non solar aspects. Ski penetration about an inch with boot penetration around 6". Anywhere from a foot to two feet of total snow and mostly supportable.