Sticky Crusts and Wet Snow on Tamarack Peak

Some refreeze did occur above 9000 ft. in the Tamarack Peak area last night. North aspects held mostly supportable and sometimes breakable crust conditions with a sticky snow surface. East aspects held barely supportable crusts with 25 to 40 cm of loose wet snow sandwiched among 3 melt freeze crusts. The upper most melt freeze crust formed last night and had almost thawed by noon, but it still remained skier supportive and ski cuts on nearby test slopes only started to trigger small roller balls at that time. Evidence of widespread skier triggered loose wet activity and some hybrid loose wet and wet slab activity that occurred yesterday afternoon when the frozen crusts had thawed existed on the E facing slopes of the Proletariat (see this link for a report from an anonymous bc skier yesterday). 

Photo 1: Snowpit showing the various crust and wet snow layers on an E facing slope at 9700 ft at the coordinates attached to this observation. This is a false color image to highlight the layer differences. ECTN 14 at the upper crust, ECTN 22 at the lowest crust. 

Photo 2: Breakable crust above wet snow on a N aspect at 9840 near the top of Tamarack Peak

Photo 3: Cloud cover over Relay Peak helping to limit some of the daytime warming.