Firm snow with no softening on Mt. Judah

Our plan today was to head to the south side of Mt Judah to see if we could catch some soft spring snow at lower elevations out of the wind.  Below freezing overnight temperatures provided a solid refreeze of the snow surface along with brisk NE winds that were blowing strong along the ridges and peaks in this area.  While temperatures did warm slightly through the late morning hours and the NE winds did decrease a little, they still remained in the strong range and kept everything cold and firm with no signs of softening.  At 11am we descended the south side of Judah.  Wind sculped and scoured surfaces were on the top couple hundred verticle feet and then smooth but firm crust below that.  Light amounts of blowing snow was observed along the Judah ridge and along the Sierra Crest.  We dug a test pit to look at some hard wind slabs that had formed off of the ridge which showed limited unstable test results.