Warm at Virginia Lakes

We went for a tour up at Virginia Lakes by Blue Lake this afternoon. Temperatures were quite warm out there today and it felt a lot like spring. Clouds were generally scattered, and winds were light gusting to moderate. 

The snowpack has settled significantly recently and coverage continues to appear thinner and thinner. Near tree line many southerly aspects are completely melted out, and the spots that do hold snow are wet to the ground. With the correct timing you could find some decent corn skiing. You also might be able to get a wet loose avalanche going in just the right spot. Northerlies continue to hold mostly dry snow, but snow surfaces were starting to get damp in places. Skinning from wet to dry snow resulted in some significant snow sticking to our skins. 

We dug a pit on a north aspect near tree line at 9900 ft. The snowpack there was mostly made up of facets that are now rounding. The top several centimeters of the snowpack were moist and lower layers in the pack also seemed to have slightly more moisture in them than we have seen previously. An ECT produced no results but a PST on the large grained rounding facets near the ground propagated to the end at 29/100cm.