Near surface facets progressing (slowly) on Lincoln Ridge.

I toured Lincoln Ridge today to examine the progression of near surface faceting and the amount of surface wet snow formation on mid elevation solar aspects. I choose a snowpit location on the edge of a small below treeline avalanche path that receives full shade all day long this time of year. Here I observed the top layer of the snowpack to hold advanced near surface facets, more faceted than observed in this general area over the past month, but no more faceted than what has been seen in some other locations around the forecast area. The rain crust just below the snow surface remained strong and has not had any significant decomposition. Traveling around other NE aspect sections of Lincoln Ridge, I noted that surface layer faceting has progressed in open areas with the quality of over snow travel conditions improving.

I also assessed an open SSW aspect slope in the 7,200' to 7,800' elevation range that held 1 to 2 inches of surface wet snow at noon. It did not take much deviation towards WSW aspect terrain features to find the snow surface still mostly frozen.

No evidence of instability observed while on tour in this area today.