Echo Peak

The cool NE wind kept the snow frozen and firm on all aspects besides S and SE. These southerly aspects experienced a few centimeters of surface melt, although shaded patches still held frozen snow. The few centimeters of surface melt made for good ski and skinning conditions. These aspects are getting shallow and have a lot of obstacles. Snowpack tests including ski pole drags and boot penetration tests showed no instabilities in the warming surface snow.

The NE and E aspects were firm, “slide for life” and “don’t drop your stuff” type of surface conditions. Skinning on these aspects had no penetration into the surface, but the large surface grains on untracked surfaces still allowed the skins to grip.

On the descent there was more firm snow than expected. Even with the protection of the ridge, the snow melt was very specific to SE (not ESE) and S aspects

Travel was slightly slower than usual due to the low coverage below 7500ft. Manzanita and rocks are scattered across the first pitch to go towards Echo. I was able to skin from 6600 ft and even skin some of the meadow down towards the start of the up. There was a lot of route finding and zig zagging with the occasional log to step over. This first pitch descent is "sporty" right now and requires extreme control when riding.

I observed two old loose wet avalanches caused by rock and cornice fall. Avalanche #1:Ridge south of Echo Peak below a massive cornice on a NE aspect, most likely went during the Feb 23-24 rain storm. Avalanche #2: SE aspect under cliff band and caused by rock fall. 

I probed the snow pack depth  at 8500 feet in the northeast trees. With a probe I could feel layers st 20cm, 50 cm,  and 100 cm from the surface,  The top 50 cm of snow was knife hard. The total snowpack height was 150cm.