Surface melt despite cloud cover on Silver Peak.

We toured into SIlver Peak this morning to see the amount of snow surface refreeze and surface melt rates. General snowcover in this area is thinning rapidly below 7,000' with numerous bare spots negotiated on the approach and exit. Once above 7,000', snowcover increases dramatically on all aspects. In open, flat terrain around 7,100' we encountered a strong refreeze of the top 5 inches of the snowpack with about 3 feet of non-refrozen residual wet snow to the ground underneath the surface crust. Under forest canopy a relatively weaker but still decent snow surface refreeze was observed.

5/8 to 7/8 cloud cover prior to 9 am increased to 8/8 cloud cover after 9 am. Even with the thick cloud cover, snow surface melt was noted on all aspects prior to 10 am up to our high point of travel at 8,200'. Descending open E aspect terrain from 8,200' to 7,100' between 10:00 to 10:15 am, we encountered 2 inches of surface wet snow on top of a supportable but weakening melt-freeze crust. At this time it became fairly easy to push the powder basket end of a ski pole through the crust and into the residual wet snow below. All indications were that a loose wet avalanche problem would develop in this area as snow surface melt continued as the day progressed.