Quick report
Welcome to spring! Fresh snow dumping hard, and then low-angle laps on 11 inches of light powder.
Snowpack
Arrived to about 4-5 inches of fresh, but the wind was moving a lot of snow. Trailhead already had drifts of 18"-20". Found wind drifts mid-slope, up high and down low. Despite the humidity and damp snow saturating clothes and packs, it skied like a dream. After the pulse eased up, I measured 11" of fresh. Would have a been a blower over the cowling kind of day. Multiple hasty pits on Northeast and East faces between 8,700' and 9,000'. Most but not all failed on isolation on the top 7"-8" which sat on a damp crust. But had no sluffing, no collapsing, no cracking. On nothing steeper than 28 and the snow was all well-behaved. The combo of direct sun and the temperature rising from 30 to 34 between 2:10 P.M. and 2:40 P.M. brought an end to the party, and even straight north was heavy on the exit run.