Soft Snow and Crusts on Mt. Rose

On the way over to Mt. Rose, we saw a few small loose wet instabilities on the S face of Incline Lake Peak near some rocky outcrops at 10:30 am.

When we got to the parking area and started skinning we had to traverse a N facing slope and found 6 to 8 inches of settled soft, cold snow. After this traverse, we ascended a tree-covered S aspect between 7500 and 8200 ft. A firm refrozen sun crust existed on this slope in the morning.  We continued up and gained an E facing ridge where we found a breakable sun crust over soft cold snow with some wind effects on the snow surface. Near the top of our skin, we traversed back onto a N aspect and found consistent cold soft snow in sheltered areas.

Along the ridge, we could see areas where the winds had scoured snow away from the ridge and windward slopes and transported it onto leeward aspects below the ridge. These wind-loaded slopes held firm hollow sounding wind slabs. We avoided the steeper slopes and found a lower angle (20 degree) wind-loaded slope near the ridge to try and get more information about these lingering wind slabs. We found a firm (4F+ to 1F) wind slab sitting on top of softer snow. We could not cause any cracking or other signs of instabilities on this slope until we undercut it. Once we undercut the slope, we could cause some cracking by kicking the slope above the undercut area. 

This information and the information we collected on the way up prompted us to traverse back to lower angle sheltered N facing slopes for the descent. As expected we found consistent cold soft snow on these slopes. Near the bottom, we wrapped around to a more E facing slope and found the breakable crust we had seen on the way up. 

Cloud cover moving through the area during the day seemed to limit the amount of warming that occurred. We did not encounter any loose wet instabilities on sun-exposed E aspects or tree-covered but still sunny S aspects on the way down. Driving back we saw a few more small loose wet instabilities on the S face of Incline Lake Peak.