Half circumnavigation of Blue Lakes

We circumnavigated the western half of the open riding around Blue Lakes today, which was a great opportunity to see conditions over a wide variety of terrain. There was evidence of previous avalanche activity across most of The Nipple (AKA Polaris Bowl). The crowns and debris were partially obscured by additional snowfall. People were venturing into steep terrain around The Nipple and Lost Lakes today without consequence - given our Deep Persistent problem this doesn't indicate stability, but is still worth noting. Large surface hoar was widespread on the surface today, though melting in the sun on steep sunny slopes by late morning. I returned to the same location I saw large surface hoar on the surface before this last storm (NE aspect at 8800ft), and could not find it buried today. Snowpack was deep and supportable under the top 2ft of powder - we trenched here and there but never broke through to the facets today like we did at Spooner yesterday. Dec 1st facets were probed at 5ft from the surface and deeper, with an overall snowpack of 6ft and deeper - along NW, N, NE, E aspects from 8200 to 8800ft. Sunny aspects held a rideable amount of snow, but only enough to do so very conservatively. By late morning, sunny slopes were getting wet at the surface, with roller balls initiating from rocks, and tree bombs falling.

Pic 1: Two crowns in the shade. The one on the left continues well onto the sunny slope. Most of the steep slopes around The Nipple had slid around the same timeframe, with additional snowfall obscuring the evidence.

Pic 2: 10mm surface hoar on the surface of cold slopes.

Pic 3: Over 6ft of snow at 8200ft, well away from ridgetop and wind loading.

Pic 4: A brief period of warm weather on sunny slopes.