Spring conditions Crater lake to ridge line

We started our tour at 9am and headed up to Crater Lake.  The snow was supportable in both the exposed and covered areas.  But the exposed areas were quickly softening up.  Once at Crater Lake, we moved to the west bowl above the lake and began climbing up the slow next to the large wall.  The snow in the area was quickly softening,  There was a small waterfall exposed and flowing on the west facing side of the middle ridge.

As we approached the upper portion below the ridge line, we could see many cornices.  A couple rather large.  There were results of previous cornice fall on the slopes.

The wind had been non-existent to this point but was now picking up.  The surface of the snow also exhibited results of stronger wind.

As we approached the ridge, the wind picked up and was blowing strongly across the top (~30mph).  On the ridge, the snow was gone in both directions. Getting to Stevens would have required booting it over.

Descending back down the route we climbed, the snow was close to corn in consistency.  As we dropped further down from Crater Lake, it was getting softer in the exposed areas and easy to break roller balls loose.  Shaded areas remained firm and crusty.  It became trickier to descend between the patches of soft exposed and hard crust shaded areas.

The final section, that follows the Jeep trail back to the road, had two small sections of exposed dirt that required skinning around or booting.