Rain effect in Bishop Creek

Went up Bishop Creek to see how far the roads were open and see what the April 6-7 rain had done to the snow pack.  The road to Sabrina is open all the way to the upper parking lot; North Lake road is gated where it crosses Bishop Creek, but looks like it's mostly clear; South Lake road has a soft closure just above Parchers Camp, but is plowed all the way to the backpacker parking lot at the road end and the lot is clear.

Snow depth at the South Lake parking lot is about 20 cm.  I hiked up the Bishop Pass trail until I cut off to the Sawmill snow pillow.  Approach shoes, no post holing. Snow depths around the pillow were 25-35 cm, but deeper out in the meadow to the southeast, where I dug a shallow snow pit (see image).  Basically, an isothermal sequence of tough firm snow and ice layers overlying wet mushy rounding depth hoar (approach shoes not recommended for working in snow pit). Snow cover is fairly continuous above 10,200.