Warming Snow on Lincoln Ridge

Lincoln Ridge held a variety of conditions. One of the first things we noticed was cloud cover over this area that obscured the sun. This slowed down the day's warming. On sheltered and shaded N and NE facing aspects, the recent snow remained soft and cold. We did encounter some areas of wet snow on low-angle northerly aspects that get sun once the sun rose above the morning's clouds. We also could feel the facets below the recent snow on N aspects. Even though these facets remain soft and weak, snowpit tests and observations did not reveal any signs of current instability on this layer. There is simply not enough load on it right now in this area. 

Once we made it up onto the ridge, we saw signs of wind scouring and previous blowing snow on both sides of the ridge. There were still some fragile cornices above N-NE facing slopes that were sheltered from the NE winds. Ski kicks well away from the edges of these cornices would cause them to break. When the oven-sized pieces hit the wind-loaded slopes below, they did not trigger any cracking or other signs of lingering wind slab instability. There were also drifts of snow on the SW side of the ridge. We did not trigger any cracking in these when we kicked them or stomped on them. We could feel a thin melt-freeze crust on the SW side of the ridge. A few inches of soft dry recent snow still existed below the melt-freeze crust. This melt-freeze crust remained intact when we left the area at noon. Likely the morning's clouds had prevented it from warming up enough to melt the crust before noon.