Very warm day at Red Lake Peak

Very warm day at Red Lake Peak today, with surface snow in the sun already becoming wet by 10am. Lots of surface hoar and near surface faeceting observed today, though winds and sun seemed to be destroying surface hoar on slopes exposed to them by afternoon. Much of the near surface faceting was occuring under a thin crust that could protect it.

Pics 1 and 2: Surface hoar on willows in Hope Valley, in the morning when and where you'd expect to find it. But the surface hoar was observed to our high point (pin drop) and was still intact on shaded or indirect sunny slopes into the afternoon.

Pic 3: With subtle changes in aspect, the surface snow went from cold and dry to warm and wet, resulting in lots of skin glopping.

Pics 4 and 5: Highly textured snow from settlement, sun, and previous winds. These look horrible from a distance, but the sunny slopes were actually decent skiing even after the corn window should have been closed by the moving sun, likely because of unusally warm air temps. We thought about some facet skiing in the shade, but decided against it because of quality concerns.