Solid overnight refreeze on south side Castle Pk.

A very solid snowpack refreeze occurred in this area over the last 36 hours. Near freezing air temps and thick cloud cover yesterday followed by clear skies and near to below freezing air temperatures last night allowed for a full depth refreeze of previous wet snow. Digging into the snowpack on a SSE aspect at 8,240' at 11 am (noted lat/long) revealed Knife (K) hard melt-freeze crust for the top 35 cm before encountering Ice (I) hard ice below that could not be penetrated with a shovel (photo).

Snow surface melt began during the mid morning hours with 2 cm of wet surface snow noted on wind sheltered SE aspects at 7,750' at 10:15 am. At 10:30, open slopes influenced by convective cooling from light to moderate speed NE winds held 1 cm of surface wet snow. S and SW aspects remained nearly fully frozen at this time with only trace amounts of surface wet snow. By noon, up to 4 cm of surface wet snow existed in areas undergoing the greatest amount of melt with 1 to 2 cm in other sun exposed areas. Conditions remained very supportable upon departing the area at 12:45 pm. Not evidence of wet snow instability observed during the morning hours.