Daytime Warming and Some Lingering Cold Snow on Incline Lake Peak

Today felt spring-like, with sunny weather and warm temperatures on Incline Lake Peak. The winds decreased and shifted to the SW around noon. During our tour, trees started dripping, and the snow surface started to get wet on sun-exposed areas on all but the N aspects. We noticed several small roller balls and sluffs of wet loose snow near rocks and on SE and S facing slopes. Some happened today as the day warmed up, and some happened yesterday. At the end of our tour, we drove over Mt. Rose Summit and saw more loose wet instabilities on Fireplug and the south side of Mt. Rose. None of these wet snow instabilities entrained much snow, but it was still warming up when we departed around 2 pm. 

In addition to the warming snow, we saw many recently formed wind slabs and cornices. Ski kicks and cuts on wind-loaded test slopes did not produce any results. The wind slabs felt firm and difficult to break. They had bonded well to the snow surfaces below them in this area. Ski penetration on the slopes loaded by the NE winds also remained less than an inch, indicating that very little snow exists for wind transport by tomorrow's increased SW winds in this area. 

N aspects sheltered from the winds still held soft, consistent snow. We found progressively more dense snow with well-bonded layers when we dug into the snowpack on these slopes.