Minor blowing snow on NW Incline Peak

Foggy conditions with light snowfall greeted us on our arrival at Incline Peak this morning. Light snow continued off and on until about midday at which time the fog lifted and mostly cloudy skies prevailed.

New snow amounts in this area totaled less than 1 inch through the morning hours with weak spill over from the Sierra Crest as forecast. Light amounts of blowing snow were observed near treeline over the top of existing cornice features. We saw no signs of reactive wind slabs on our tour in this area on either NE or SE aspects.

Mostly supportable, occasionally breakable melt-freeze crusts were observed on all SE aspects traveled up to our high point of 9,700'. Signs of the recent gale force SW wind events were prevalent, with widespread wind drifts and cornice features in near treeline terrain. Down in the heavily treed, wind sheltered northerly aspect terrain we found around 3 inches of unconsolidated recent storm snow at the surface that provided enjoyable travel conditions. Ski cuts on test slopes in the well wind protected below treeline areas produced no results.