Observations from Trimmer

Amazingly calm day with warming temperatures on Trimmer Peak. We followed the previous days' skin track most of the way, and it had 3-4 inches of new snow in most places, except for the saddle between Trimmer and the "Bonus Lap" where the previous skin tracks had been completely covered by wind blown snow. Near the rocky top of the 11's we found several small areas with obvious wind slab. Away from ridges and lower on the slope, we found impressively cold uncohesive snow with no signs of instability in this below tree line terrain.

Over the course of the day temperatures warmed significantly and snow began melting from trees and glopping to our skins. Shady slopes still held uncohesive snow around 2pm, but slopes that received sun or were below trees with melting or dropping snow were being impacted. 

Photo 1: Small cracks on the edge of a wind blown feature. This was at the highest point of our tour and in above tree line terrain. 

Photo 2: Small windslab on a steeper convex test slope. I wish I had taken a before photo to show the surface signs of wind slab. It was a textbook wind loaded convexity.

Photo 3: Same test slope. My partner noticed this as terrain irregularity with signs of wind effected snow. It was impressively small, and inconsequential in this location, but certainly had the component parts of a wind slab avalanche that could be serious in different terrain.