A stable spring snowpack existed everywhere we traveled today, except when we reached below about 10,500 feet in the afternoon. We sank knee-deep into wet snow and experienced cracks shooting 10 feet away from our skis on some steep slopes lower in elevation around 1:00 P.M.

Sievers Mountain

Snowmass into Willow Creek over Sievers Mountain into Maroon Creek

Observed many Loose Wet avalanches from last week's warmup and a few Wet Slabs as well as evidence of a few large cornice falls that did not trigger any slab avalanhes on the slopes below. No recent avalanche activity was observed throughout the day.

The snowpack is homogenous melt forms to the ground on all slopes except northwest, north, and northeast-facing slopes above treeline (most norths were melt forms to the ground below about 11,500 ft.) There was 1 to 2 inches of dry, wind-packed rounds on high-elevation north-facing slopes sitting on a supportable melt-freeze crust. There were some percolation columns in the top few inches of the snowpack here, but water did not appear to make it more than a foot deep into the snowpack on north-facing slopes above 12,000 feet. On wind-sheltered slopes facing east through south, the surface snow was melting before 10 AM but stayed supportable to skis and boots above treeline through about 1 PM. The dust layer is starting to show on many slopes facing the south half of the compass and where it is on the surface, the snow is melting much quicker than adjacent slopes without the dust layer on the surface.

Cool, mostly clear, windy morning transporting more snow than I expected off westerly and onto easterly-facing slopes. It quickly warmed up by around 11 AM, and the winds died down. Clouds began rolling into the Elks around 3 to 4 PM.