Tropical. Clear sunny skies with very light and variable winds. Temps in the mid forties at ridge tops. Plenty of dry alpine on ridges for sunbathing and snacks.
Observation: Turnagain
Location: Magnum
Left the sunburst parking lot under sunny skies and headed south. We headed up pms bowl on the southwest part of magnum and spun a lap before going back up for a west facing run back to the truck. No new avalanches observed but lots of evidence of the action from the last couple weeks.
Weather
Snow surface
The snow was crispy when we started at 10:45. Climbing the southwest side of magnum the snow remained firm but skinable. Where the slope had more of a southerly tilt the snow was softer and corning up. Skiing back down that way at 1:00 things had softened further but we were still about an hour or so early for the prime corn.
On our climb back up the southerlies had softened further and skis would slip on surface slush in places. We skied the west aspect at 3:00 and it was undercooked and still frozen. This was a bit of a surprise and I’d suspect that it was still hours away from perfection.
Snowpack
The snowpack is in full spring form with the hot sunny days. Playing the aspect and time is the name of the game. We were surprised by how late things were softening even with above freezing ridge top temps from the night previous. We found 4-5 inches of refrozen snow sitting above moist/wet melt freeze grains on southern slopes at noon.
Glide action next to repeat offender on the sunnyside.
Southerlies cooking on the south side of magnum.
Some bulbous cornices hanging in there on the ridge leading up to super bowl.
Wet loose off the north side of corn biscuit. The slopes with western tilt are producing the action.