Buttermilk Country-Mt Humphreys-NE Couloir snow conditions

Put in just over 9 miles round trip to check out the NE couloir on Mt Humphreys. The day started out sunny, but by 1100am a high haze came into the zone and cut the intensity of the sun significantly. Warming effects were absent today, and the reality is there is hardly any snow left on southerly aspects in this area. The south couloir on Basin Mountain was burned out in the bottom apron and did not look to appealing further up either. There was a light SW breeze most of the day in the lower basin and snow on sunnier aspects really never warmed up too much except where very sheltered and below 9500ft. The entire basin and the large moraine that sits above Longley reservoir was very wind effected and provided every surface condition imaginable. Soft surface conditions were found starting around 12000ft on the northerly shady aspects. It didn’t appear to have snowed much, perhaps 2-4cm from the little storm this past Saturday. The snow from the 3/01 storm still measured around 25-35cm and was 4F in hardness and well bonded to old firm surfaces. I had to pull very aggressively to pull a block of the 3/01 snow off the old surfaces. There were a  few 5-8cm thick panels of very hard Pencil-Knife hardness wind board that was encapsulating 5cm of faceted snow above firm surfaces, but these were neither widespread, nor uniform across the NE couloir slope. The only minor cracking I got was on the edge of some of these candy shell wind board formations, and besides that the alpine snow was consistent  and provided around 20cm deep ski pen. The top reaches of the couloir were stripped and presented firm Styrofoam like conditions.

At 12613ft @100pm it was 22F and at 13,555ft @ 230pm it was 21F.

At the crest of the ridge there was a consistent SW wind blowing at 20/25mph, but there was no snow being transported in the area. Overall the thinnest conditions I’ve ever seen while skiing up here with rock hazard honestly being the main concern today.