There was a solid overnight freeze from 10,000 ft and above, with a weaker freeze and rapidly diminishing snow cover below that. A cool breeze and increasing cloud cover in the late morning kept wet avalanche concerns at bay today, and made for character-building ski conditions above 12,000 feet. Dust is becoming more prominent on the surface below about 11,500 feet. It generally has not surfaced above that elevation...yet.

Ski Hayden

From Castle Creek Rd up Sawyer Creek towards summits of Ski Hayden

There were several small Loose Wet avalanches in steep terrain from the few/several days before today on steep northerly-facing terrain. The bed surface of these small slides showed dust.

There is still dry snow on north and northeast-facing terrain above about 12,300 ft. The surface freeze is a 2cm thick collapsible melt-freeze crust that overlies about 10cm of decomposed/fragmented snow mixed in with small facets. This weak layer combination sits atop a stouter, thicker crust that formed during the last heat wave, with dry, rounded snow below that. There are isolated patches of a dusting of dry surface snow above 13,000 ft.

Started sunny and warm. Temperatures stayed warm, but there was a cool southwesterly breeze in the alpine with increasing cloud cover later in the morning.