Quick report
Access up Smith Creek road was a breeze. We were able to drive to ~3000ft where we dropped the sled roughly 2 mi before the water treatment facility. Once on the sleds, the road up to Saddle Pass has great coverage, but multiple downed trees. Luckily someone had previously taken care of most of them (thank you!). Once at the pass we were met with sunny skies, temps in the mid 20s and no wind. We measured 80 cm of snow depth and it seemed like roughly an inch or two of new snow was squeezed out overnight. Traveling up the shoulder on skis to the lookout was straight forward but challenging due to all the trees and boulders that were still semi exposed. Travel became smoother over 5800 ft as the snowpack thickened and the trees thinned. There was obvious, ~1 cm tall, surface hoar developed along the whole route and as the day went on the sun was starting to affect the top inch of snow. We also observed snow shedding off taller trees in direct sunlight, but the low angle this time of year kept warming problems minimal. Once at the lookout we measured 125cm of snow. There were only minor wind drifts and almost no cornice development on northerly aspects. We dug a hasty pit (SE aspect, 6880 ft) to the Nov 12/13 rain crust which was approx 70 cm down. We found that the top 15-20cm of the snowpack was soft and unconsolidated. That sat over 25cm of progressively firmer (fist to 4 finger) snow, on top of the Nov 23rd crust (~45cm down). Below that there were a few discernable layers but the snow was progressively firmer. Going from 4 finger to 1 finger as you approach the Nov 12th/13th crust layer. Daylight was dwindling so we did not conduct any tests. After a few pictures and quickly packing up we skied back down the shoulder to the road. Another foot (or two) of snow will make this route more enjoyable, but can't complain about sunny skies!