The heat is on

Toured to 8150 feet on Mt Brown today to look at what effect overnight warm temperatures had on the snowpack.

• Below 5200 feet, I found moistened snow from the surface to the ground.  While skis stayed on top of this isothermal mess, it was fairly easy to push a ski pole (basket end) through the entire snowpack to the ground.  I estimate last night's freeze line to be somewhere between 5500 and 5700 feet.  Between 5700 and 7400 feet, I found progressively fewer moistened grains at the surface. 
• Afternoon clearing gave me a chance to look for avalanche debris on nearby peaks.  I saw many low-elevation rollerballs and one, small loose wet avalanche on the southeast slopes of Mt Stanton.  One small, loose wet slide was seen on southwest-facing, low-elevation slopes of Mt Cannon as well.
• I dug a pit at 7400 feet and found no evidence of buried surface hoar or facets. I did find a 1 centimeter thick ice crust buried 10 centimeters below the surface(see photo). 
• On the ski down, rollerballs were starting below my turns from 6400 feet on down.  I felt that a steeper slope would have produced a loose wet avalanche based on the saturation of the top foot of the snowpack.  Snow conditions were wet, heavy and challenging at mid and low-elevations today.  The snowpack below 5400 feet is melting quickly and lot's of downfall is starting to be exposed (see photo).