Shallow New and Wet Snow on a Firm Crust on Andesite

Driving up to Donner Summit I could immediately see that new snow amounts from this storm had started small and had shrunk even smaller since the snow stopped. At the trailhead for Andesite, only a dusting of storm snow existed on top of the older melt/freeze snow. As I climbed up Andesite, I noticed a few places where up to an inch of storm snow still lingered, but less than an inch of storm snow remained on most slopes. In areas exposed to the NE winds I could see some signs of NE wind scouring and some very shallow and small areas of wind deposited snow. A quick pit in near treeline terrain showed a thick layer of melt/freeze snow below the shallow storm snow and several icy crusts in the upper snowpack.

The surface remained firm in the morning and many areas held breakable crust conditions. The storm snow started to soften by 10:30 am. On my descent around 11:15 am, ski cuts on sunny E-facing slopes triggered small rollerballs, pinwheels, and sluffs. Since the new snow was so shallow, these instabilities all remained very small.