Castle Peak Observations

Moderate NE winds today were keeping temps pretty cool into the early afternoon hours.  Most NW-NE exposed aspects have been scoured at the upper elevations with cold unconsolidated snow down lower.  Solar aspects have the whole variety of snow conditions from unconsolidated snow, wind scoured and wind buff, to consolidated melt freeze.  Very little roller ball activity off of ski turns and no natural roller ball or point release activity seen in this area in the 7500-9100' elevation range.      

Photo #1: Upper terrain on the north side of Castle Peak showing the wind scouring from the past couple days of N and NE winds.

Photo #2: Skier triggered hard wind slab on a very small terrain feature at 8900' NW aspect just below the summit proper on the North side.  Cross loaded from the recent NE winds measuring up to 12'' deep.  Had considerable cracking and small shooting cracks on the slope above but seemed to be relatively small localized pockets which didn't present much of a problem, still avoided the steeper wind loaded terrain and stuck to lower slope angles.