Mama said to leave while the party is still good

Quick survey of surface conditions on multiple aspects in the sidecountry east of WMR, for baseline prior to mooshing. 

• The surface snow was dry on even sunny aspects until at least early afternoon. About mid afternoon, temps climbed and the snow abrupty turned moist, even on northerly slopes at about 6000 feet.
• Before this transition, we triggered several small but harmless loose dry avalanches on steep (>35*) slopes with ski cuts and turns. These ran on the surface and did not entrain snow as they moved downslope.
• Other than the sluffs, we saw no signs of instability prior to the mid-afternoon warm up.
• In the mid elevation, sheltered terrain where we traveled, we found no slabs of drifted snow, though hard, dense dune-like drifts are present near ridges.
• There's plenty of settled, dry snow on all aspects above at least 5000 feet. This snow will be prone to sluffing or wet slabs once it warms abruptly, though slides might stay on the surface and not gouge into/ entrain snow.
• Bursts of moderate rain late afternoon at the base of the ski area. 

Prior to the warmup, we skied slopes to 40 degrees where we found no signs of wet snow, wind slab or deep persistent slab avalanche problems. As the snow warmed and wetted, we passed on the last run we had planned for the day and went to the beacon park for practice.