Mashed potato-palooza 2024

Went up with the intention of skiing the icy couloir, ridges were classically wind affected, which we expected, but we discovered a touchy storm slab sitting right in the entrance of the couloir with no way to avoid it. One whack with the ski pole produced a 1mx1mx15cm block that easily broke loose and slid. Slab was finger dense, below it was fist density facets sitting on a 4 finger density facet-y crust. We observed lots of wind loading into the upper portion of the couloir so we decided to bootpack out and ski Little Simpsons. We skied the North side of Little Simpsons, the convexity at the top had a soft layer of moist snow on top of a much denser base, it skied nicely. Halfway down the bowl as the snow became denser we observed lots of pinwheeling, one the size of a beachball. Closer to the bottom of the bowl the temperature affect on the snow was huge, like waterskiing on mashed potatoes. On our skin track back up and our second lap down the pinwheeling and wet loose action was all around us, although nothing developed big enough to concern us. Although the air was warm, it remained snowing in the bowl, we didn't get rained on until the bottom of the chairlift.