Spring Conditions on Castle Peak

Starting out this morning we encountered mostly firm snow on the surface. Digging into the snowpack we found that the layer of refrozen snow varied from 3-5 inches in thickness in most places. Below this refrozen snow, wet snow existed. As we ascended higher and the day warmed up, we started to encounter some areas where the refreeze had already melted and we would sink into wet snow in these spots. 

Once we moved out of the trees into more exposed areas, the SW winds picked up and snow surfaces were still firm enough that we found ski crampons useful for ascending. The W and SW aspects remained firm until our departure around 11:15 am. We chose to descend the S-SE aspects where we found 1-2 inches of soft wet snow on top of a supportable melt-freeze layer. Once we dropped back into terrain sheltered from the SW winds, the snowpack changed from supportable to punchy and wet. On these slopes, the wet snow was already boot-top deep.

While we saw signs of warming and some wet snow formation throughout our tour, we did not see any wet loose sluffs. We did choose to move off of steep sun-exposed slopes as soon as we started to experience deeper less supportable wet snow.