Wind slab avalanches and rain soaked conditions on Mt. Judah.

We toured on Mt. Judah this morning looking at wind slab and rain on snow conditions. This area received 3 to 5 inches of new snow last night before snow levels began rising. We encountered some rain/snow mix at our highpoint of travel of 8,200' at 10:45 am. Otherwise we experienced moderate rain throughout our time on tour.

Recent new snow from last night and yesterday morning was up to 5 inches deep and in a rain soaked state upon our arrival at 7,000' on Donner Pass at 9 am. The rain crust from Dec 27 at the base of this rain soaked snow or at times on the surface in wind scoured areas was still supportable through the areas we traveled.

We ski cut numerous test slopes on N-NE-E aspects between 7,000' and 7,800', triggering only isolated and minor loose wet instability. Any areas of natural loose wet avalanches we saw on the N aspects of Donner Peak were small and isolated.

Once we reached the heavily wind loaded terrain of Wildflower Ridge (NE aspect, near treeline, 7,800') we could see a wide propagating natural wind slab avalanche that had occurred this morning and had been triggered by cornice collapse. There were also signs of smaller wind slab avalanches from yesterday on this same slope in the limited terrain that remained beyond either flank.

Moving up to the north end of the Mt. Judah summit ridge, we could see debris from another old wind slab avalanche that had a few inches of snow covering the debris and likely occurred yesterday.

Rain runnels were starting to show on the snow surface in some areas. Creeks visible from Old Hwy 40 on the E side of Donner Pass were flowing quite well.