Peak 6,721

Following one of the best overnight freezes we've seen lately, conditions were generally safe in the terrain we traveled. Fresh snow over the last couple of days has added up enough to warrant evaluating before charging in. We found shallow but fast-moving Loose Dry sluffs in steeper northerly-facing slopes. Today's warm-up was slow thanks to favorable weather conditions, but we did observe rollerballing in the new snow. Be mindful of how warm and sunny it gets over the next couple of days as this sluffing potential may increase.

Snowfall from Saturday evening through Monday was mostly confined to around 5,000 feet and above. From about 5,000 to 6,000 feet, we found around an inch of new snow - maybe slightly more. Above that, we found generally 3 to 4 inches on leeward-facing slopes. Drifted areas directly below ridges and in gullies were around 6 inches deep. All in all, the new snow bonded fairly well to the old, refrozen snow surface but we had to manage sluffing while descending steeper northerly-facing slopes. Despite the fast-moving sluff, it was unable to erode the harder layer below so additional snow entrainment was minimal. Negligable boot penetration throughout our travels up to the depth of the new snow. By the time we returned to sub 5,000 foot elevations, boot penetration remained negligable. Upper snowpack layers remain locked up and mostly homogenous when probing across slopes. Despite today's cool temps and cloud cover, sunny slopes did soften and started to get wet. This was noticable when going back and forth from sunny to shady areas and the snow would glop to our skins. No new cornice caving since we visited this area around 5 days ago.