Quick report
Mostly warmish bluebird day though did become quite NNW windy up high only while finishing climb and on summit of Pyramid. Bootpacked up newly snow-re-covered Ralston Trail (melted-out down low by return) mid-morning to summit (12:30). Crossed well-covered/supportable (avoiding a few in-process melt-holes) Ropi/Toem Lakes (3:15). Summited Pyramid via east face axe/crampons climb (7pm) and after skiing edge of southern ridge rejoined uphill track (8pm) to return across Toem/Ropi in time to breakout headlamp and skin up for track-retraced exit climb to ski/bootpack (9pm). Boot and ski penetration mostly stopped at new snow interface all day. After shading/sundown, crust mostly supportable on ski though did have to pizza-pie here and there on lower Pyramid descent when breaking through on turns became a risk. Also, note that while stability seemed ok on bootpack climb, I did NOT ski east face due to mix of concerns about bonding and binding failure when trying to click in for Ralston descent that forced me to improvise a pseudo tele-style descents for the day w one of my skis. Other notes of possible use: coverage remains solid in terrain around NW-N-E sides of Pyramid and Ralston while much more melted out to the south. New snow around Ralston trail below roughly 8K’ melted out by end of day making exit far less enjoyable bootpack than ascent. Ski from Cup Lake up high looks fun (but down low gets thin). Upper Echo Lake snow coverage remains solid-looking from afar. Lower Echo Lake much thinner looking. Tallac south side routes look fairly melted out up high (unless there is a compressed trail I couldn’t see from Pyramid).
Avalanche
Fresh (and stale) loose wet and cornice fall on distant South & East facing aspects. Combined with poor bonding of fresh snow on frozen crust interface in a couple spots bw 7500-8500’ during ascent on SE-facing Ralston trail (and equipment failures), chose ascent/descent routes carefully and experienced no issues overhead or underfoot. Definitely be careful w bonding issues on mainly east/south-facing aspects until healing occurs through sufficient time/melt-freeze/etc. Note: did not notice same bonding issues on more NW-facing aspect ski or after surface cooling had occurred from easterly shading.