Minor Warming on Slide Mountain

I did a tour on Slide Mountain to look at snow surface conditions.  There are lots of different types of crusts present on most aspects.  Very little soft unconsolidated snow remains even in protected below treeline areas.  The recent dusting of an inch of new snow Saturday morning was not seen in this location and winds have scoured most slopes on all aspects to some degree.  Light to moderate west winds today were keeping the upper elevations above 9000' cool in the morning.  Firm, but mostly smooth snow existed on southerly aspects above 9000' at 11am.  Below 8600' soft and supportable snow existed with the top 2'' of snow sun warmed.  Conditions continued to improve into the midday until high clouds moved into the area and limited any additional warming.