The surface of the snow felt pretty frozen despite the 50 degrees temperature on the truck at the trailhead. Near treeline there was a weak 2 to 3 inch crust that had large wet grains below that collapsed easily in tests and were very weak. Above treeline was well locked up on north to east until close to noon.

From the Bear Lake Trailhead we skinned all the way to the head of the Odessa Gorge and up onto the Ptarmigan Glacier. At Ptarmigan Pass we went over Flat Top Mountain and descended the Banana bowls back to the car.

There was a widespread avalanche cycle on May 8, that I assume most of the avalanches I saw occured.

The snowpack below treeline is receding quicker than my hairline and most trails that are not on northerly aspects or shaded by thick trees are melted out.

Near treeline was the goldilocks area today where you could have triggered a wet loose avalanche or maybe a mini wet slab. On northerly aspects the surface crust was about 2 to 3 inches thick and had very weak wet grains beneath. This crust was collapsing into the wet snow to give some very spooky collapses. The crust wasn't really strong enough to propagate much of a fracture but I could see pulling a way a mini crust slab in steep terrain that could gouge deeper. Once you stepped through the wet grains the snowpack felt supportive beneath that and boot penetrations never got more than about 6 inches. Easterly aspects near treeline were pretty cooked and good corn skiing at around noon and south looked pretty tired and was very melted out.

Above treeline on north aspects the snowpack was still over 2 meters deep and felt pretty homogenous, some crusts but no obvious weak layers. The top 4 to 6 inches had transitioned into large melt-freeze forms that had formed a strong crust overnight. Beneath that was 1 finger rounding wet snow from the previous weeks storm. There was some pooling of water above an old melt freeze crust (pre-storm). Beneath this was more finger hard rounds which had percolation columns running through it above a dust crust layer. North aspects never thawed by noon today and was perfect for ski crampons. Southerly aspects looked to be mostly dirty snow with very little clean snow left for Loose Wet avalanches.

Despite warm temperatures, clouds and wind kept the snowpack fairly solid through most of the day.