Wind Hammered Snow and Soft Snow on Chickadee Ridge

The winds calmed down, and temperatures warmed up today. This change in the weather made the climb up Chickadee Ridge quite pleasant. It did not take away any of the wind scouring that has happened over the last week. We found uneven surfaces, firm wind-scoured snow, dense wind slabs, and wind-sculpted snow on all aspects near the ridge. The wind effects became more prominent and more widespread as we gained elevation. We kicked on a few areas of smooth, dense wind slabs and did not see any signs of instability. 

As we descended, we moved between the sunny side and the shaded side of the ridge, starting on the sunny side (S-SW facing) near the top. We encountered a few spots of soft wet melt-freeze snow and widespread breakable sun crusts. Farther down, we traversed back over into the trees on the ridge's shady side (N-facing). Once we got into lower elevation terrain sheltered from the winds, the snow became soft and consistent. We did notice widespread sufrace hoar up to the top of the ridge on the northerly aspects.