Quick report
We traveled up to the rain/snow line around 1450ft, and we skied a couple laps between 1500-2100ft. Cloud cover increased through the day and visibility was limited above our top elevation of 2100ft. There were only a few periods of light flurries in the afternoon, but the snowfall rate was increasing as we descended our last run around 2:30pm. Winds were light from the East. Our view of any active wind-loading today at upper elevations on Sunburst was obscured. However, at the start of our day, we noticed that windward facing features on Seattle Ridge had already been scoured to dirt in many areas by the strong winds overnight. At around 2000ft on a WNW aspect, we identified the mid-February facets/SH layer down 35cm. This layer did not show signs of instability in several hand shears and two shovel tilt tests. The recent snow was still soft (Fist hardness), had little wind-effect at this elevation band and aspect. It made for really fun ‘hot pow’ skiing. Our ski pen ranged from 25cm at 2000ft to 10cm toward the bottom of our laps at 1500ft. The crux of the day was survival skiing back to the parking lot below the snow/rain line from 1450-950ft. It was still worth the price of admission.