Warm and Sunny in Johnson Canyon

We returned to Johnson Canyon to see what impacts the warm days had on the snow. We found melt-freeze crusts on all aspects up to at least 7400 ft. The ones on the shady northerly aspects remained frozen this morning. They presented as breakable crusts with soft snow below them. We poked around on the NE-N-NW aspects to see what had become of the surface hoar that was there on 12/22. In most areas, the warm weather had destroyed it, but we did find small (2-4mm) and intact surface hoar buried under the melt-freeze crust on one steeper N-facing aspect.

We returned to the ridge and descended on the sunny aspects (SE-S-SW). The snow had become wet and variable on these aspects by 11 am. In some places, it was wet and fast, and in others, it was wet and sticky. Many bushes and rocks have melted out on the sunny aspects.