Quick report
(note: this observation is from Sunday, prior to the new snow Monday night/Tuesday morning) Toured up from just below the Winter TH (~2 mi below Park Butte TH). By Sunday afternoon, a decent car could make it through the remaining snow patches. We had to briefly take off skis to cross dirt patches 3-4 times before reaching continuous snow. Relatively straight-forward skinning conditions all the way up. Increasing winds kept the snow surface cold and unfortunately did nothing to soften the crust for the ski down. Thin high clouds also kept wet loose activity at bay at lower elevations. Glacier very well filled in the entire way. - Firm surface below treeline, easy skinning for the most part - Once out of the trees around 5k, there was a 1-1.5 in crust on the surface of cold snow. - Weather was forecasted to be low wind (~5 mph) with moderate gusts (10-15 mph), which felt accurate heading up in early daylight, but got stronger as we continued up. - Going around the east side of the ridge at 6k, very large chunks of the cornice had broken off and caused some wet loose activity. Some pinwheels, likely from the previous day. - The crust continued until ~8800 - even though each step broke through on skis, easy skinning - Above 8800, the crust disappeared and snow was cold and lightly windboarded, mild/soft sastrugi - Were able to skin up the entire Roman Wall without ski crampons. - Summit gusts were probably close to 40+mph (12:30 pm) - Lovely skiing down the Roman Wall, until getting back to that crust at 8800. Truly unpleasant skiing until wet mushy snow at 5000ft. Some wet loose activity from the prior day, but wind and clouds kept the unconsolidated snow relatively stable. - Skied the road out, with a little bit of skate skiing and walking a few dirt stretches
Avalanche
Large cornice fall on the east facing ridge around 6k ft. Likely fell on Saturday 3/29, causing small <D1 wet loose slide. Some pinwheels on isolated slopes