Southern Sierra - Snow conditions, warming

-Snowline on Northfacing slopes down to 6,400'.  All the forest service dirt roads are clear for the trailheads in the WIlliamson area.    

-We observed no signs of instability anywhere ... that being said we were above 11,000' from morning until late afternoon.    

-SE facing Slopes above 13,000' at noon = ski pen~3cm, boot pen~5cm.  Shallow surface moistening and softening.  See attached photo.  

-S facing slopes between 11,000 and 12,000' near rocky cliffs at 3:30pm were soft and moist and in places would sink to knee.

-No signs of any loose-wet point releases at all on southerly slopes above 11,000' by mid to late afternoon.

-Below 9,000' south facing slopes were isothermal and by late afternoon were fairly unsupportable for boot packing.

-Above 9,000' heavy wind effect almost everywhere at all aspects with very firm wind-board and sastrugi.  By late afternoon northerly facing slopes were moist and thick up to 9000'.  

*Looking at things positively, there was no breakable crust in the alpine!  But virtualy no soft snow except for varying degrees of solar softening on slopes with alteast a little southerly aspect and were time dependent.  Again, greatest hazards were firm conditions, and at lower elevations late in the day, mank.