Hardly Needed Snowshoes

Monday was a pleasant day for a walk, so we went looking for snow. Optimistically, we carried snowshoes on our packs, but found that we didn't really need them.

• There's not much snow below about 7000 feet. There are, however, a lot of downed trees to crawl over and around thanks to recent strong winds.
• We found 8 to 18 inches of snow from 7000 feet to our high point at 7400 feet. We dug down to look at the state of the paltry snowpack on a northeast-facing slope. We saw layers of ice interspresed with some softer, sugary snow.
• Looking at the surrounding peaks we noticed that shady, high elevation cirques and chutes seem to have the most uniform snow cover. On most other slopes brush, rocks, and stumps still poke up through the surface.