Observation: Cottonwood Canyons

I dug another hole today on the lee side of the south ridge of mighty Reynolds peak as we were discussing the potential effects of long term too-warm conditions, and I was a bit surprised to be able to make a snowball from every point down the snowpack. Is it saturating enough to create one cohesive slab and creating a big "bridge?" Bet my life on it with another load on top, or insist that the snowpack is now stable at least at mid-elevations with a longer-term melt? No. But possibly one sliver of light in an otherwise-discouraging winter of snow, avalanche danger, and subsequent terrain options? Maybe.

For the time being we are still being pretty conservative and trying to stick to lower-angles, ridges, avoiding steep rolls and thin areas (the latter is hard to do), but probably the likelihood of triggering an avy now is pretty low until the next load. However, I would call the danger moderate because you probably could pry something out someplace with a bold/dumb move?

a wide variety of surfaces; crust on south/SE, decent powder with lots of tracks on high north, and chowder (at best) on all aspects below about 8500+.