Lower Horse Creek/Cattle Creek

I traveled on mostly north facing, sheltered slopes below treeline today.  Cloud cover produced a greenhouse effect and changed dry near-surface facets above 8900' to moist and broke down thin surface melt freeze crusts at lower elevations.

 While I made a few turns on dry soft snow at around 9500', surface snow that was dry on my way up was beginning to shift to moist by my way down in the afternoon. Around 9,200' feet on a N facing protected slope, I began to produce roller balls with turns and the snow surface became a bit sticky. On lower N facing slopes, turns produced minor wet-loose activity that ran slow moving over a melt-freeze crust.

When I descended to below 7500', I noticed that open areas without tracks had become mushy and moist top to bottom.

There was a few very light snow showers throughout the day with little wind and no accumulation. There was just a touch of new snow visible on the highest rocks near Matterhorn Pk. Below around 7500' I felt some sprinkles of rain around 2 PM.

Turns produced roller balls and minor wet-loose activity on sheltered north facing slopes below treeline this afternoon.