Sun softened south on Castle

Toured in the Castle Peak area today to try to find soft snow on North and South aspects. 

On the north side of Castle we found decent "dust over crust" skiing with about 2-4" of cold snow over the 1/4 rain crust. The wind had drifted snow into this area, but we observed no cracking or any signs of a slab within this new snow (Photo 1). On hiking out of this area I performed several quick mitt-pits to see what was under the rain crust. At one location (pin drop) I observed 1-2mm faceted snow with some visible striations. These grains were Fist hard, coarse and dry, but the crust overlying them was pencil hard and 3-4 cm thick (Photo 2 and 3). A follow up pit on a North aspect at 8500' closer to the ridgetop  (39.3644, -120.3393) found less developed Fist hard facets below the 1/4 rain crust. Tests at this location did not suggest likely propagation (CT7 SC, ECTN 8- @197cm just below the rain crust).

South aspects at 13:00 were softened from the sun and warm air temps. The surface varied between softer broken precip grains to snow that had undergone a few melt-freeze cycles and was beginning to resemble corn. All areas we traveled in had a solid and supportable crust under the softer surface snow making skiing consistent and fun (Photo 4). We did not see any roller balls or other signs of wet snow instability.