Mt. Judah observations

We toured Mt. Judah this morning from north to south. On our approach from the north, we encountered large areas of moderately wind affected near surface facets on N to NE aspects that had yet to undergo any snow surface melt. As we moved onto E aspect terrain the surface snow was transitional and still more dry than melt-freeze. Once we traveled onto southerly aspect terrain we moved into more established melt-freeze conditions.

While melt-freeze conditions were widespread across the southerly aspect terrain, its thickness and supportability varied by location. For the most part we had supportable conditions on a 6 to 8 inch thick melt freeze crust. During the 11 am to 12:30 pm time frame there was 1 to 2 inches of melting wet snow on the top of this crust. In localized areas where the surface melt freeze crust was closer to only 3 inches thick, it was becoming unsupportable by 11am. The areas that were loosing supportability seemed to be mostly near treeline and closer to the valley floor in Upper Emigrant Canyon at around 7,300'. Open slopes higher up on the southerly aspects of Mt. Judah held the thicker, supportable melt-freeze conditions.