I never thought I'd appreciate skiing frozen crusts as much as I did today. After this extended period of above-freezing temps since Sunday, colder temperatures returned and began to freeze up the saturated snowpack. I wanted to look at low, mid, and upper elevations to see how the snowpack was reacting to the colder temperatures:

Butler Fork (7,200') The snow surface was a 1-2 cm thick frozen crust on top of wet and loose grains. It was pretty easy to break through down to the wet snow underneath.

Spruces (7,600') The crust was thicker and more supportable, but still wet grains below.

Guardsman TH (8,900) The crust was up to 5 cms thick and stout. Very difficult to break through the crust. The snow underneath was damp, but not wet and loose as it was at lower elevations.

Guardsman Area (10,000') Southerly-facing slopes had a 10 cm thick crust with damp snow underneath. The crust was impossible to break through and it took effort to dig into it with my shovel.

What was of interest is that northerly-facing slopes above 9,500' (upper elevations on the UAC danger rose) had a 1-2 cm thick melt-freeze (MF) crust with dry snow underneath, indicating to me upper elevation north aspects still haven't had a warm up, despite the warm/hot temperatures over this past week.

Photos:

- Frozen runnels on the surface of southerly-facing slopes, indicating liquid water has been moving through the snowpack.

- A glide crack in Room of Doom in Mineral Fork (photo taken 4/6). Glide avalanches may be an issue through much of this spring season.

- Big Cottonwood Creek. A sign of things to come.

Where I was traveling today, Low danger 9,000' and above due to the snowpack freezing up. Below 9,000', a Moderate danger as the snowpack hadn't yet frozen solidly.