Unstable Wet Snow and a Small Wet Loose Avalanche on Incline Lake Peak

When we started our tour this morning, it was already too warm for a jacket at 8400 ft. Some patches of slush and water had started to melt out on Incline Lake. Last night's refreeze still felt supportable on most of the E-SE aspects before 10 am, but we still found a few spots of boot-top deep wet snow around trees and rocks on these aspects. 

Once we moved over to the more N-NE-E facing slopes around the corner, we found less supportable snow, but it was not quite wet enough for signs of wet snow instability. We continued up to a high point of 9700 ft. As we traveled, we could feel the refreeze melting away. Below the refreeze, deep wet snow existed almost everywhere. Some places held more than 3 ft of wet snow below the thin melt-freeze crust. 

Looking out at the surrounding mountains, we could see that melting snow has exposed more and more ground on southerly slopes. Northerly aspects remain mostly snow-covered, and E and W aspects are somewhere between the two. We did not see any natural wet snow avalanches on the surrounding slopes. 

We started down at 11 am, and finding supportable snow had become challenging especially on NE-E aspects. We chose low-angle slopes without steep slopes above them to try and avoid any potential wet snow avalanches. We also steered clear of larger terrain features and areas near rocks and trees where even deeper wet snow existed. We triggered some small roller balls on these lower angle slopes as we skied. We did find one small ENE facing test slope that we could safely ski cut on our way down. The ski cut released a wet loose avalanche that entrained the top 12 to 16 inches of wet snow. This wet loose avalanche just confirmed what we had already seen. The refreeze had melted, deep wet snow existed on most slopes, and wet snow avalanches could occur. At that point, we continued to utilize lower-angle terrain and headed back to the car.