Wet snow observations on Rose Knob Peak

We toured Rose Knob Peak this morning to assess surface wet snow instability. Upon our arrival at the trailhead, last night's snow surface refreeze was strong in this area both on open slopes and under forest canopy. As in most portions of the forecast area, snow cover across SE-S-SW aspects is thinning rapidly with large areas of bare ground exposed.

Descending from the summit at 11 am, we encountered established melt-freeze conditions on SE-S aspect terrain from the 9,710' summit with easy to trigger small rollerballs. As we moved onto E aspect and micro NE aspect terrain at around 8,600' down to 7,800', the most recent storm snow was still in a transitional state. We were able to intentionally trigger larger rollerballs, pinwheels to 1.5' in diameter, and tiny wet loose avalanches from ski cuts on steep test slopes.