Mt. Houghton

Morning clouds to the east of the Mt. Houghton slowed the sun's melting of the snow, but by 10:30am a few inches of surface melting had occurred on south east facing slopes below the summit. As we descended to lower elevations the melting had progressed further and the snow becase signficantly softer. Starting up around 8am the snow was firm even under tree cover. Coverage is just enough to stay on snow if you get a little bit lucky. From the summit it was interesting to observe the snow cover on surrounding peaks. More shady north facing terrain is still holding decent coverage, while sunnier aspects are getting very thin. There is a small crack opening up on the east face of Mt. Houghton. There are several areas of dirty snow on both south an north aspects in this area. The dirty snow on the sunny side skied pretty well.