Lipps

We toured up to the southwest ridge of Lipps to check out the snow conditions on the south side of the pass. The access was pretty manageable with 4" of soft faceting snow on top of a supportable crust. We made our way over a few alders to 1,200' where the going got pretty easy. There was a wind skin at about 1,500' and places with wind slab above that. Places protected from the wind had several feet of soft snow from the storm last weekend. We dug a pit at 2,000' and found a strong snowpack with no concerning test results. The snow in the upper elevations looked wind affected in places with waved texture, but many places still looked smooth. The wind was blowing from the south on the east side of the road and from the northwest on Seattle Ridge. The soft snow made for great riding condtitions. 

We dug a pit at 2,000' and got no results (ECTX). There were several crust layers at this elevation that were mostly down more than 3 feet (one was slightly higher). I didn't see any weak snow grains surrounding these crusts. The total height of snow at this elevation varied, but was anywhere from 4 to 10' deep. In the location of our snowpit it was 6.7' (205cm) deep. There were near surface facets on top of the snowpack that made for very good riding conditions. We triggered a dry loose avalanche on a small steep slope.  Some upper elevation slopes looked like they have been wind affected and some still look smooth.