Rodgers Peak

This was another afternoon of wet snow patrol, pitting my stubbornness against difficult travel conditions. My skins were saturated within a few minutes of starting my day. I managed to summit Rodgers Peak (where the lookout is), but it was a battle. The "easiest" travel was in heavily treed terrain where bonus solar radiation from trees, and water raining down from the trees had produced a somewhat more consolidated upper snowpack. Out from the trees, the snow was deep and moist, and ski pen was 35-50cm through a pile of wet snow. On very steep slopes I was able to get some deeply gouging cinnamon rolls going, which stalled out on slopes less than ~37 degrees. 

My last visit to this area was in the middle of the big storm, when conditions were much colder and the new snow was dry extending down to the valley. Following the bulk of the storm, in the middle of the week, precipitation switched to rain and it was apparent that heavy rain had fallen in the valley and extending up to  7,000'. I found significant rain runnels in the new snow, and lots of liquid water hanging in the upper snowpack. The "skiing" was pretty rough (as anticipated). Great conditions for injuring your legs. We will need a day or three of colder weather to allow the snowpack to deal with the liquid water hanging in it, but first we have to stop putting so much liquid water in (stop or slow meltwater production at the surface). 

A wet mess! Several inches of saturated snow on the surface, then 1-2.5 feet of settled storm snow that had seen water pushed all the way through it, then an inch of wet snow/slush on the 3/11 interface. No formal pits, and did not look further down than the 3/11 interface.