Wet snowpack on Castle Peak

Today's tour went to Castle Peak to assess the snowpack at mid elevations. Below about 7,400', the snowpack melt over the past week was substantial with numerous areas of bare ground and snow patches 4 to 6 inches deep. Once above about 7,400', the snowpack height increased to about 1 to 1.5 feet with fairly uniform coverage, especially in open areas. The snowpack was wet top to bottom all the way up to my highpoint of travel at around 8,250'.

I dug a snowpit on a N aspect at treeline at about 8,230'. The snowpack was made up of several layers of large grain rounded poly crystals. Free water drainage appeared well established. There were no signs of problematic weak layer formation.