Mt. Tallac and Cathedral Bowl observations.

We toured Mt. Tallac this morning with a descent through Cathedral Bowl. It appeared that a decent to weak overnight refreeze had occurred on open slopes and a weak to nonexistent overnight refreeze had occurred under forest canopy. The upper snowpack on E-SE-S-SW-W aspects had fully transitioned to melt-freeze up to our highpoint of travel at 9,600'. We noted that the upper snowpack on N-NE aspects remained transitional above about 8,200' The recent new snow from April 17/18 had still not experienced a full melt cycle in this upper elevation northerly zone.

We descended into Cathedral Bowl via the north entrance at 11:15 am. Once over the initial wind pillow, conditions were appropriately ski supportable, but were clearly nearing the latter portion of the desired time window to avoid wet loose avalanche problems. While we were descending through the lower portions of the bowl, we witnessed a sizable rockfall event off of the middle buttress. Consider this additional potential hazard during melt-freeze cycles if using the area underneath cliffs or buttresses as an island of safety within avalanche terrain.

Once we exited Cathedral Bowl we noted couple of recent wet loose avalanches that had initiated out of the rocks on open E aspect terrain on the slope just to the north of Cathedral Bowl.