Warm Snow and Variable Conditions on Castle Peak

Warm and wet conditions prevailed on sunny aspects on Castle Peak today. By mid-morning, surface snow was wet and sticky on all but the due north aspects. Ski kicks and ski cuts on sunny test slopes triggered small roller balls and pinwheels before 11 am. By the afternoon cloud cover had moved into the area and the warming slowed down. When we revisited the same slopes in the afternoon we did not see a significant increase in wet snow instabilities. Our afternoon ski kicks produced similar small roller balls and pinwheels and one very small sluff of shallow wet snow. Additional ski cuts on steep sun-exposed E facing test slopes with wet surface snow on them at 3 pm also only triggered small roller balls and pinwheels. 

We also traveled on the N and NW aspects and found variable snow surfaces including breakable crusts, soft cold snow, and warm sticky snow. Snowpit data from previously wind-loaded NW aspect did not show any signs of current instability. However, we did find a variable layer of weaker snow below the surface (see snowpit for details).