General Observations

Booted part way up one of the chutes on Rainbow Ridge from the road. Turned around after approx. 900m vert because of rock fall, avalanche debris in intended line and overall uninspiring snow conditions. Snow situation here (West facing, ~2700-5700ft elevation) can be summarized as refrozen melt-freeze crust on wet/damp facets. Crust became mostly supportive to boot packing above ~4000ft but was still only 5cm or so thick. Where crust is unsupportive you go in all the way. Crust did not soften up for me due to cool & overcast weather. Suspect there is no actual corn window and it goes from frozen straight to fully rotten, so frozen crust is probably preferable. Plenty of loose wet slides from previous days and it seemed like many of roadside lines have melted out significantly since last weekend. Minimal accumulation of new snow where I was but probably enough to form shallow, fresh wind slabs at higher elevations.