We were glad we got out early this morning because the snowpack completely changed around lunchtime. Early this morning the powder was inverted but still cold and fun to ride. Around 12:30 everything changed to mashed potatoes and it was raining by the time we got back to the trailhead around 2PM...

We stayed on mellow slopes less than 30 degrees today which wasn't quite steep enough for the DEEEEP inverted snow. We experienced lots of cracking in the upper 6-8 inches of dense snow on nearly every turn. The slopes we were on, were not steep enough to slide other than a couple of steep rollovers where we had tiny slabs break loose. It was hard to get a very good look around for other avalanche signs because of the weather so we didn't not see other signs of instability. The wind was raging most of the morning (see pic 1). Sometimes you had to hunker down until the major gusts passed. There was lots of drifting in the morning and loading of the leeward slopes. But it was still a beautiful day in the mountains.

Riding the sleds was a lot of fun today with the deep bottomless snow (see Pic 2). The snowpack is amazing wherever we go (see pic 3). But as it started warming up we saw some of those giant pillows start to break apart (see pic 4). On the way down the canyon you could see the effects of the warm weather. There were roller balls everywhere, the Temple Chutes had all slid through the day and we were starting to see runnells from the rain on the snow further down the canyon. Unfortunately all the amazing snow we've had for the last 3 months is a thing of the past.