Slower than Expected Warming on Castle Peak

Sunny weather and refrozen snow surfaces had us hunting for areas where daytime warming would soften the snow surface. The sunny SE and S aspects on Castle Peak seemed an excellent spot to find spring conditions.

As we started skinning, it felt colder than we had expected. A light E-NE wind kept us cool as we climbed the ridge. We arrived at the top of a sunny SE-facing slope around 10 am to find it firm and icy. 

The firm icy conditions triggered us to pivot to the N-NW facing slopes on the other side of the ridge. About an inch of soft cold snow sat on top of a solid rain crust on these aspects. We stopped to dig a quick hand pit. Once we chipped through the rain crust, we found consolidated layers of snow below it.

When we returned to the S-SE aspects at noon, .5 to 1 inch of soft wet snow existed on the surface. The crust below this wet surface snow remained firm and supportable. We did not see any areas of deeper wet snow or any signs of wet snow instabilities.