Lick Creek

Did a quick tour up Lick Creek this afternoon. Broken clouds, light to moderate wind near the summit, with intermittent snow showers. About 8-10" of fresh, fairly high density snow on the east side of the summit. Significantly less on the west facing slope.

I did a few hand pits on the east facing slope as I travelled back up to the top to explore the old/new interface. I suspect last night's storm started as rain below about 7800 ft, as there was a thin crust under the new snow below this elevation that I did not observe at the top. It was easy to hand shear the new snow off this layer where it existed.

Above about 7800 feet, I did not see this thin crust layer. The new snow seemed right side up and better bonded to the old surface.