Poor Refreeze and Deep Wet Snow on Jakes

At the start of our skin up the east side of Jakes Peak, snow coverage was thin and patchy. It was also already wet in sun-exposed places. The shady tree-covered areas still had a thin but firm refrozen crust on the surface this morning. We could easily poke our poles through this thin crust indicating that last night's refreeze was poor at best. As we climbed higher, snow coverage improved but the amount of wet snow also increased. By 9:30 am the weak overnight refreeze had already completely melted. When we stepped off our skis we sank into ankle-deep wet snow. We decided to continue up and change aspects to a slightly more ENE aspect to see if the snow became more supportable at higher elevations on a slightly less sunny aspect. We still encountered wet snow. At 10:30 when we stepped off our skis at 8500 ft. the wet snow came up to our boot tops. Rather than continue up to the top as planned we decided to turn around and descend since the snow was warming and becoming unsupportable. On the descent, the snow was wet and punchy in some spots and barely ski supportable in other areas. We did start to trigger roller balls as we descended.

 Driving back we noticed cloud cover building over the Sierra Crest and what looked like some rain falling in the afternoon.