Kirkwood Lake

     On the drive up through Carson pass winds were blowing hard out of the NE and banners of snow were flying off the ridges of Elephant's back and the top of the Carson Spur. Skies were clear and temps were well above freezing. On the tour out, solar aspects were heating up and loosening up the melt freeze crust from the last couple of days. Snow in shaded areas remained cool and soft. In open areas and ridgelines there was lots of wind effected snow and small windslabs were observed on isolated features but were hard to initiate. However, snow layers below these slabs was still soft and the realease in places was planar. Winds throughout the day were persistent causing snow to transport to leeward side of slopes. Within my pit I looked at the upper portion of the snowpack, the snow was consolidated rounds and there was no results in any of my compression tests. The bottom section of the snowpack had some faceted grains and clustered melt freeze grains that was wet and compressible when squeezed. This was the most uniform snow I have seen in the lower layers and seemed to be gaining strength. The sun and above freezing temps caused our skins to clump up at times and made any surface in the sun wet. Small rollerballs and pinwheels were failing off some nearby rocks. Around 1530 the wind really tappered off and became very light with intermittent light gusts. Looking through the surrounding terrain there was no signs of recent fractures our other instabilities.