Early Melt on Rose Knob

While putting our skis at the trailhead at 9 am we sunk ankle deep into wet snow. We also noticed a D1 loose wet avalanche that had happened yesterday afternoon as we looked up at the sunny slopes adjacent to Rose Knob Peak.

We skinned up the using the lowest angle slopes we could and kept stepping off our skis to see how quickly loose wet snow was forming. By 9:45 it was boot top deep on SE aspects at 8600 ft. The crust was still barely ski supportable on those aspects at that time. When we reached 8900 ft, we traversed over to a WSW and SW aspect and found firmer snow that was still boot supportable. The S facing aspects were somewhere in between with ankle deep wet snow between 8900 and 9600 ft. 

At the summit, we decided to come down the more supportable SW aspects since the SE and S aspects had already softened too much. We found good supportable corn conditions on those aspects at 10:30. Based on how fast things were warming we determined that it would not be much longer before the SW aspects also became punchy. At 10:45 while skinning back up an ENE aspect between 8000 and 8700 ft. we found knee deep wet snow. We decided to call it a day and headed down on lower angle WSW aspects at that point. By the time we reached 7600 ft, these aspects also held unsupportable wet snow.