Quick report
What happened to Winter? I ascended the NW slope of Waterhouse to about 8800 ft starting at about 3:00 pm and observed mainly NE, N, and NW slopes. Across Grass Lake, I saw spots of brown, ice, water, and grass starting to emerge from melt-out. Despite the warm temperatures, at the base of the mountain, I saw relatively large, intact surface hoar. As I ascended, I noted the many obstacles and the substantially increased lumpiness of the terrain since I was last there a week ago. Skinning had become difficult with icy existing tracks, the many obstacles, and locally higher slope angles. I decided to turn around early because the descent looked tricky, It was,. especially at the bottom. Not only were there natural obstacles, every existing ski, boot, and snowshoe track -- of which there were many -- was hard. Below 8100 ft, it became almost survival skiing. The descent took a lot more energy than expected. I returned to the trailhead at about 5:00 pm.
Weather
It was very warm, even though it was late afternoon.