Warm and Wet Snow on Mt. Tallac

We went to Mt. Tallac today to look at a reported avalanche that was seen in Desolation Wilderness and to look at areas that had the buried March 24 surface hoar layer.  The Mt. Price avalanche observation can be seen here.  Above freezing overnight temperatures with clear skies provided a very thin and superficial refreeze of the snow surface due to radiational cooling.  Rapid warming made for soft snow conditions in areas of direct sun by mid morning.  At the top of Corkscrew, at the pin drop, we dug a snowpit to look for the buried surface hoar layer.  It was found just under 1' deep below the snow surface.  The upper snowpack was made up of wet snow grains down to the buried surface hoar layer and below it before turning back to moist rounds.  The buried surface hoar layer has been wetted, potentially for a few days now.  An ECT did not show any unstable signs on this layer.  Our descent was at 11:30am, which was late for optimum ski conditions.  Large roller balls with wet punchy snow were experienced from 9000-8600', with improved melt freeze conditions in the middle elevations, before unsupportable wet snow below 7400'.