Quick report
The approach for Red Lake Peak/Stevens is largely on sunny slopes and the snowpack on sunny slopes is pretty minimal. After skinning and occassionally hiking over sections of rock, I arrived at a near treeline north facing open slope at 9000'. As I stepped out of my skis, I sunk almost all the way to the ground . This area is a facet factory and the snowpack is impressively weak.
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- clear
- Wind Loading
- none
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Mild temps and light winds.
Snowpack
I dug a pit in this mostly faceted north facing 9000' snowpack. The depth hoar at the ground was the biggest I've seen this season. I got several ECTP test results on facets towards the bottom of the snowpack. We are not quite there but I could imagine the upper parts of this snowpack growing weaker and losing what little slab character it currently has.