Wet Snow on Silver Peak

It got warm quickly today. By 10:30, wet surface snow existed on all aspects in sunny spots. We reached the ridge on Silver Peak around noon. We saw many areas of bare ground on S aspects and more wet snow on E-SE aspects. The steeper test slopes that faced south had all melted out, but rolling a snowball down a less steep slope produced pinwheels up to 18 inches in diameter. As we continued up the ridge, we could see that the recent NE winds had scoured the upper sections of the N-NE-facing slopes. We crossed over these onto a more ENE-facing aspect. Ski cuts on this slope produced roller balls and pinwheels, but it was not quite steep enough to generate wet loose avalanches. We found similar conditions with wet snow in the sunny areas and cold dry snow in the shady N-facing spots for the rest of our tour. Aside from the wet snow, we did not see any other signs of instability.