Lincoln Ridge Observations

I toured Lincoln Ridge this morning to gauge snow surface melt on sub 8,000' S and SW aspects and to gauge near surface faceting in full shaded areas that still hold dust on crust.

Over the past week, the dust on crust conditions that were widespread on northerly aspects in this area have been reduced to only areas of full shade. Areas with any amount of sun exposure, even from indirect sun have undergone at least small amounts of surface melt-freeze. I dug a snowpit on a NE aspect in near treeline terrain at 7,640' to assess change in the very upper portion of the snowpack and saw only minimal near surface faceting. In this area rain crusts in the upper snowpack remain strong and have not started to decompose.

Mid level cloud cover over about 75% of the sky was slowing snow surface melt, but not preventing it. The 7,200' to 7,800' SW aspect terrain I traveled in the 10:45 to 11am timeframe held supportable conditions with 1/2 to 1 inch of wet snow on the surface.Traveling another similar SW aspect around noon held similar snow surface conditions.

No signs of instability observed.