Unsupportable Wet Snow on Mt. Judah

We thought that since weather conditions today were similar to yesterday the spring melt-freeze snow would behave similarly as well. It turns out that the sun-exposed E-SE-S aspects softened much faster today on Mt. Judah than they did yesterday on Castle Peak. By 10:30 to 11:00 am deep wet snow already existed on these aspects. We bypassed the steeper E aspects to avoid wet loose snow on long steep slopes. Instead, we headed to the lower angle S aspects where the snow was still barely ski-supportable to see just how wet the snow had become. When we stepped off our skis, we found wet snow that was shin-deep. Ski cuts on small sunny test slopes produced small sluffs of wet snow. In some shaded areas, we did find the remnants of last night's melt-freeze crust. It was between 1 and 4 inches thick. Below the crust, more wet snow existed. 

We ascended via low angle slopes without steep slopes above us and returned via northerly aspects. Shallow wet sticky snow existed in the sunny spots on these aspects and firm uneven snow existed in the shady areas.