Thin Refreeze on Silver Peak

In the morning most aspects held firm frozen surfaces with crusts ranging from 10 to 15 cm thick in open areas and much thinner less supportable crusts on tree covered slopes. Some of the tree covered areas did not refreeze last night and had deep wet snow on them by 9 am.

This refreeze started to melt in the mid-morning hours and by 11 am 2 to 3 cm of soft wet snow existed on sun-exposed SE-S aspects on top of a barely ski supportable 1 cm thick remnant of the overnight refreeze crust. This barely supportable refreeze was melting away quickly. Below it deep wet snow existed. By 12:00 skis started punching deeper (10 to 15 cm) into the wet snow on a SE and E aspect at 6800 ft. Probing with ski poles showed 25 to 30 cm of soft wet snow.

By 11:00 am northerly aspects started to soften as well with the frim surfaces turning to breakable crusts with wet snow below them or just deep wet snow without crusts on top of them.