Quick report
Variety. That's the name of the game right now. Go with low expectations and you'll most likely be pleasantly surprised. Things aren't as grim and rugged as many have said (in my opinion), but be prepared for every type of snow. It'd be hard to find snow to slide on you right now. Certainly no soft snow instabilities, also no wet activity. High clouds kept any snowpack metamorphosis at bay.
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- scattered
High clouds most of the day. Little to no wind.
Snowpack
Ok...travel is not nearly as bad as many have been saying (stepping off the soapbox now). In the trees, there is ice abound and any snow surface under trees is pretty rugged. That said, in established skin tracks it's plenty easy to skin without traction devices and not slip. We used boot crampons for a brief period when it was just easier to boot than skin, but didn't have nor need ski pons at any point. There is HUGE surface hoar in open areas and the surface snow that isn't tree bombed is quite rotten. Tons of huge facets and surface hoar. Snow in the alpine is still surprisingly unconsolidated on west aspects. We were surprised to find that the west face of Red was nowhere close to being corn. The surface is ski supportable but not by much and it's easy to boot posthole down to boottop. In pure solar aspects down around 5k' it's closer to corn but not there yet.