Wet and cold snow on Luther Pass

   After our impressive wind storm the trailhead greeted us with pine needles, pine cones, and tree moss sprinkled across the landscape. It seemed like there was down trees and branches everywhere. Our tour started around 7600', the outside air temp was warm and the skies were broken. On the tour up there was a variety of snow surfaces based on elevation, from 7600' to 8300' there was a thin breakable rain crusts, wind effected patches, and strong supportable wind slabs below tree line. Above that from 8300' to 9300',  the snow was variable with soft powder, breakable wind effect, and strong supportable wind slabs. At any elevation these strong supportable wind slabs clearly sounded hollow and once jumped on would produce cracking. I cut out a couple hasty hand pits and ECTs. The ECT propagated on tap 1 in the first test, and tap 4 in my second. Underneath the pencil hard wind slab was soft unconsolidated snow that allowed for planar results. It was clear that this interface still needs time to bond. As we reached the ridge near tree line winds picked up and snow fall increased. From there I observed swirling snow devils and snow transportation in exposed areas. As we approached the summit light snow fall continued and soft snow was found in protected areas within the trees. at the summit there was a clear swing in the air temperatures as there was frost hoar needles growing from the branches and pine needle of trees above 9000'. Once we switched over to go down hill, the air temps began to rise and snow fall decreased. The ride down surprised us all as conditions in lower elevations below 8000'  had warmed up enough to break down the morning frozen rain crusts and softened up portions of wind affected snow and was now semi-sloppy wet cohesive snow. Ski cuts did not produce pinwheels within this wet surface snow.