Transitional Snow on Slide Mountain

We made observations on Slide Mountain today.  Skinning up we encountered variable snow surface conditions ranging from breakable crusts to softer snow that has not transitioned yet to spring snow from the Tuesday storm.  Near the top of Slide Mountain at 9600', East aspects also had up to 4'' of this slightly transitioning snow which slid easily on a firm melt freeze crust below it.  South aspects were similar with a mix of spring snow and soft transitional snow.  Steeper test slopes in this area continued to show wet loose instabilities with this recent transitioning snow, but no deeper instabilities into the previous strong melt freeze crust..  As we descended below 8800', snow conditions improved with more consolidated and smoother corn snow.  Cloud cover began to increase over the Mt. Rose area around 10am with denser cloud cover by midday.