Upper Rock Creek

I headed up Rock Creek today to monitor surfaces as they thawed and to look farther south and west to find better coverage.

Travel was supportable at all elevations throughout my tour, and I never encountered any deep, wet snow, even on patchy southeast-facing slopes at lower elevations. I poked around above treeline on east and southeast-facing aspects and found that, while the surface had thawed some, boot penetration never exceeded the top 10cm. Gusty southwest winds and reduced solar input (in-and-out cloud cover) had been at work helping things stay slightly cooler than in days past. I thought about descending an east-facing aspect around 1 pm, but the rough surface with only wet snow in the top 5-10cm deterred me. I ended up descending through some "not-awful" mini penitentes on a northeast-facing aspect. I found very little softening, or any wet snow, on northerlies at middle and upper elevations. As I worked my way down to lower elevations, I was surprised to find the superficial crust was still intact and supportable. 

Coverage indeed looks better south and west in Upper Rock Creek, and most of the Little Lakes Valley looks to have consistent snow cover down to ~10000'. The Rock Creek Road is mostly clear and easily bikeable up to Rock Creek Lake; however, it remains closed to cars.

No signs of instability.

I poked around in northerly terrain from 11000' to 12000' and found a generally shallow snowpack. Multiple layers of refrozen meltwater were present within an entirely dry snowpack. These refrozen ice layers made for supportable travel while bootpacking and touring.

I only found more than a meter of snow in places that had previously been wind-loaded: confined couloir-like features, and near the ridgetop.

Our snowpack on southeast and east-facing aspects is wet throughout and draining to the ground. A wet sandwich exists, with wet snow below the superficial crust and 5-10cm of wet snow above. I found this crust to be ~10cm thick on an east aspect at 11900'.