Observations from Incline Lake Peak

We toured in the Incline Lake Peak area today to monitor the shallow snowpack.  This area has seen significant snow melt on E aspects with many more obstacles showing than before.  Travel on these slopes are marginal and we ended up taking our skis off at one point to walk a section of burned off snow.  Northerly aspects below 8800' are showing lots of obstacles with the faceting process making the snowpack less supportable than just over a week ago.  The less ski supportable snow conditions allowed us to sink in and hit some rocks on our descent.  Wind scoured and sculpted surfaces exist in much of this terrain with soft unconsolidated snow limited to northerly aspects in below treeline wind protected areas.   The near surface faceted snow could present a future avalanche problem depending on how much additional snow we receive from our next round of storms.