Blowing snow, minimal wind slab, and loose wet instability on Hidden Peak.

Less cloud cover than expected this morning allowed for warming and the development of wet snow conditions on Hidden Peak today. Overnight refreeze in the area was poor below about 7,800'. Above about 7,500' we saw a trace to less than 1 cm of new snow from last night that had accumulated only on the old snow surface and not on trees, etc.

Along the summit ridge, minor amounts of blowing snow were observed (video) with strong SW winds. Ski cuts on several wind loaded test slopes with wind slabs up to 4 inches thick produced no results.

Wet snow was present on E aspects at 9,000' and became more widespread in sun exposed areas below 8,400'. Very small, size D1 loose wet avalanches involving the top two inches of the surface snow were easy to intentionally skier trigger on convex rollovers steeper than 37 to 38 degrees in the 8,400' to 6,800' elevation band.