Jan 27, 2011, Spring on Red Mountain

We took advantage of stable snow and made an attempt on Red Mountain.  Temps in the high 30s-mid 40s, some wispy clouds, beautiful spring weather, in other words.  We saw 4 other parties, and plenty of debris from earlier big, wet slides.  Carve-able crust in the trees on the approach, hints of corn in the Commonwealth Basin, deep but yielding slush on open south-facing slopes ascending from the basin, and thin corn over a crust frozen from last night for the upper 2/3 of the mountain.  Great travel conditions almost everywhere (deep slush on steep slopes the obvious exception), with generally easy bootpacking.  A fantastic and beautiful descent from the peak.