Warm & Wet conditions on Castle Peak

Toured out to Castle Peak today and encountered mainly heavy and wet/transitioning snow on S-SW-W-NW aspects below 8600'.

The Castle Pass area and ridge north to Castle Peak's west side was wind-affected and largely devoid of new snow--it more closely resembled the spring conditions of last week. Castle's south face appeared to have new wind-deposited snow higher up that transitioned to firmer, more consolidated snow lower down. No signs of instability were present on the south face despite the bright Sierra sun and warm air temperatures.

The gladed NW-facing slope and steeper W-facing aspect off Castle Peak's west side did have 3-5 inches of soft, wet snow on top of an firm, supportable layer. Small sections of dry, unconsolidated snow were only present in a few shaded areas higher up on the gladed NW slope.

The open SW-facing slopes above Round Valley had a 2-4 inch wind slab over looser wet snow, but didn't exhibit any instabilities other than a few small rollerballs as I skied out at 2:30pm.