Corn and Wind on Castle

In the Castle Peak Parking lot, southwest winds were blowing dust around when we got there this morning. We headed up the skin track and got out of the wind once we got into the trees. In these wind-sheltered areas, we saw refrozen surfaces on all aspects before 9 am. By 10 am we started to see some soft wet snow forming on the sun-exposed aspects that were sheltered from the winds. Once we hit the Castle Peak Ridge, we were exposed to the winds again. Wind speed and intensity increased as we ascended. These moderate to strong winds kept snow surfaces firm and frozen on exposed slopes above 8200 ft. until at least noon. Below 8200 ft. about 2-4 cm (1-2 in) of soft corn snow existed on the wind-protected sunny aspects at noon. This surface wet snow rested on top of a 20-25 cm (8-10 in) thick melt-freeze crust with soft wet snow below this crust on SE-S aspects. E aspects in this area held spring-like corn snow conditions instead of the transitional wet snow that had been prevalent on E aspects earlier this week. After about 2 pm the winds and cloud cover started to increase.