Little Lakes Valley, Rock Creek

Toured up Rock Creek looking at the warming today and for any still sensitive wind slabs. Approximately an inch of new snow in Little Lakes Valley, more up on the peaks was still dry and cold on N and W aspects and in the shade until about 245pm when only shady N aspects were still wintry snow. Wind drifts from the small storm Wednesday night were seen on specific features that had promoted drifting: depressions like gullies and lee of convexities primarily. Wind slabs down in the valley were between F and 4F+ hard and were between 2 and 15cm thick. Had a few very small kick test results on steep rollovers (see photos). Separating the drifts surfaces were primarily still frozen melt-freeze crusts. Crusts were frozen on all but S and E aspects until about 245pm when W aspects started to transition and thaw. Throughout the day the cold wintry snow from Wednesday was transitional and getting moist (good skin wax conditions). Small rollerballs and some minor entrainment on W facing test slopes by 245pm (see photo). Dug down not so much because conditions required it but becuase of the dearth of information about the Souther Zone snowpack. No concerning test results, see attached profile. Probing confirmed this general structure. A few small D1 loose wet avalanches from rocky chutes on SE aspects of Mt. Starr at 3pm (see photo). Coverage in Rock Creek is good above Mosquito Flat (10,000') except on steep E facing slopes (see photo of Mt. Starr's E face).