6-8 ft Pinwheels, Lots of Wet Snow, and a Poor Refreeze on Rubicon

As soon as we stepped onto the snow at the Rubicon trailhead at 9:45 am, we punched through the melt-freeze crust into wet snow. The refrozen crust was weak and thin, indicating a poor overnight refreeze. We continued to sink into wet snow on N-facing tree-covered aspects until about 8500 ft on our ascent. 

From the top, we could see some wet loose avalanches on steep slopes in the Desolation Wilderness and what looked like glide cracks in the distance. Most of the ridges in our view also had large cornices hanging off their edges. 

After seeing all the wet snow and the weak refreeze on the N aspects, we did not have much hope for supportable snow on the sunnier slopes. We decided to move to the E aspects to see how much wet snow existed on them. We also decided to stick to lower angle slopes and only use small test slopes to get data from. As expected, we found wet snow on the sunny E-facing slopes. Ski cuts on tests slopes @ 11:30 am triggered sluffs of wet loose snow and pinwheels that grew to 6-8 ft in diameter before breaking apart. These wet snow instabilities could have easily entrained enough snow to create problems for people on longer, steeper slopes. We continued down low-angle slopes covered with wet snow back to the car and hung up the skis before noon. 

We drove around Emerald Bay and saw some more wet loose activity on the E faces of Jakes Peak and glide cracks above Eagle Lake.