Soft Snow and NE Winds on Rubicon Peak

Driving down West Shore of Lake Tahoe, we could see whitecaps and 2 to 3ft high waves crashing into the beaches. In the distance, we could also see blowing snow on Jobs Peak, Freel Peak, and Jobs Sister. These signs indicated that the weather forecast for continued strong NE winds seemed accurate. During our skin up Rubicon, we noticed some strong gusts of wind and could see some plumes of snow near the summit until about 11:00 am.  While ascending wind sheltered N aspects, we found no signs of instability with formal snowpit tests or informal observations. By the time we got to the summit around noon, the winds had died down significantly. The only blowing snow we could still see was on the upper elevations of Dicks Peak in Desolation Wilderness. We did not find any significant wind-loading along the summit ridge of Rubicon. We found soft snow on the sheltered slopes on the way down. Below 7200 ft. snow coverage became poor and we resorted to very slow careful skiing.