Clouds and cool winds vs. partial refreeze

Moderate and cool SW winds, along with broken cloud cover, kept snow surfaces firm into late morning. Ski crampons were helpful, even though I could intentionally drive my pole basket through the surface crust. Shortly after 9am, we choose not to ski a S aspect because it was still too firm - instead we found 1" of corn on top of a supportable crust on an E aspect that was leeward and getting morning sun. We only descended to 8800ft before the snow surface was no longer supportable to skis. We returned to the original S aspect, and found soft snow on the surface and a partially refrozen crust under that. The S aspect became too unsupportable to continue below 8000ft, where tree cover sheltered the slope from the cooling winds, and also probably prevented a good overnight refreeze. By mid-day, the same clouds that had been keeping things cool began warming via greenhousing, and most snow surfaces became too soft for continued safe travel. We arrived back at our trailhead in the early afternoon, when temps dropped noticeably, and graupel showers were observed on the drive home.

Pic 1: Big cornices over an E aspect.

Pic 2: Above the same cornices. Note my partner on the left for scale.

Pic 3: A medium (about D1.5) wet loose likely from yestereday. Interesting that this is a steep, due north aspect.

Pic 4: Rockfall/mudslide/wet loose on an E aspect, also likely from yesterday. As the crow flies, this is very near to where avalanches were observed on the March 24th SH layer when that cycle first began. 

Pic 5: Another avalanche from yesterday. The debris was estimated to be over 6ft deep in places. No signs that this was human triggered. Zoom center right to see an ascending skier for scale.