Mt. Judah

Forecaster day off tour. Light snow at the base of Judah this afternoon changed to freezing rain at the summit (8200 ft) by 3 pm. Strong winds also blew over the ridge, but we did not see very much blowing snow or wind loading, just rime and ice coating our jackets, poles, and packs. On the way up, we kicked a few pieces of cornice onto wind-loaded test slopes and tried ski-cutting other slopes. While the cornices broke relatively easily, neither the pieces falling on the slopes below nor the ski cuts produced signs of unstable wind slabs. We did see several other larger cornice collapses along the Judah ridgeline that looked like they had happened in the last few days. On the way down, we found that the light rain had left a thin rain crust on the surface of the snow.