Convict Creek

I went for a midday tour of the Convict Creek area to assess warming on all aspects, and at various elevations up to 11,000'. 

I found variable conditions of surface snow, with the theme being wet snow. The upper snowpack varies depending on aspect and elevation, but consistently I found wet snow either to a knife hard MFcr, or to as far as I dug (120 cm) in areas with no crust, or to the ground. Cold, unconsolidated snow was holding on N aspects above 10,000' in select areas. 

Lots of rollerball fans, and various wet loose avalanches were observed in the region. Other riders in the region reported sharky conditions, sticky snow, transitional snow, and firm travel conditions in the early morning hours. 

Snow is melting fast at the lower elevations. Where snow is thin and continuous, polycrystals have formed over a supportable crust. This structure has also formed on higher elevation S/E slopes with thinner coverage. Higher elevation S/E slopes, as well as all other aspects with a deeper snowpack, are still in a transitioning phase. The snowpack is wet to varying depths, depending on the presence and location of thick, hard, melt freeze crusts. In some areas, the snow is wet up to a crust as deep as 85 cm. In others, this crust resides at 25 - 35 cm. Some areas are wet to the ground. Even north west aspects were wet up to 25 cm when receiving direct sunlight later in the day. Of note, I found faceted old wind slabs and cold snow on select N aspects above 10000'. Snow surfaces below 9000' were sticky in the late afternoon. Other riders in the area reported sticky surfaces near 2 pm. I waited until the sun went below the mountains and a surface refreeze happened quickly. 1 cm of breakable crust formed after about 20 minutes.