Quick report
I went to Stevens to see if I could find some corn on E/SE aspects. I found softer snow which was very enjoyable to ski, but it was a little too wet to be called corn.
Starting from the trailhead, the nearby creek was flowing nicely, and all snow bridges were gone except for the very last one near the waterfall that opened up almost two weeks ago. Skinning up through the forest was a challenge. There were many areas of bare ground, debris covered snow, and obstacles of all kinds, including the abundant willows in the area. I weaved back and forth and managed to find a way up to 7600 ft, where the continuous snow began on most aspects in the forest.
It was surprisingly firm despite starting at 11:15 am, and my sticking to strictly E and SE aspects. The north aspects were frozen, and anything in the shade on E/SE aspects was hard as well.
On the east-west ridge leading up to Stevens, I ran out of snow and booted for about 30 meters to the SE aspect of the Stevens massif. I skinned up further through the near treeline terrain on the looker's right of a big gully. In the SE bowl itself, the peak of Stevens and the ridgelines extending down from the peak were devoid of snow. I skinned until I ran out of snow near the ridge, then booted it up on rocks to the highest point of the snow on the SE aspect.
Starting at 2:00 pm, the ski down was very enjoyable with about 3 cm of soft snow on top of harder supportable snow. It was almost corn but too wet to be true corn. It was good all the way down to about 8300 ft. Then the navigation began among trees, willows, logs, rocks, dirty snow, and running water. There was a lot of ski forward a few feet, ski backwards a few feet, step down, and repeat. However, it was still possible to ski all the way down to the car.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 50s
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Snow Avail For Transport
- none
Beautiful, warm day with mostly clear skies. A light wind higher up, increasing to moderate right on the ridge.
Snowpack
Despite warm temperatures today, I did not observe any wet loose instabilities. The snow on north aspects was hard except below 8500 ft on low angle terrain. Snow on south aspects, when it existed, was soft down to a few centimeters.
At 8100 ft on an E aspect, HS was 70-74 cm.
At 8333 ft on an E aspect at 12:00 pm, ski pen was 2 cm, and boot pen was 8 cm.
At 8900 ft on the east-west ridge, I ran out of snow.
At 9600 ft on a S/SE aspect at 1:20 pm, ski pen was 4 cm, and boot pen was 12 cm.
At my high point of 9900 ft on a SE aspect at 1:45-2 pm, ski pen was 3 cm, boot pen was 10 cm.