Quick report
Had a really wonderful tour up and down the SE face of St. Joe's. Lovely snow conditions, at least above 6,500' or so. Variable weather--moderately cloudy, with some periods of sun. Pretty gusty up high, and lots of visible wind-transport, with some periods of absolute whiteout on the ridge over 9,000'. Also some small sluffs from below the cliffbands, including one small wind slab avalanche. Otherwise, no observations of instability. Approach conditions are still a bit thin/icy, but I was able to skin/ski pretty much all the way to and from the Bass Creek trailhead. Some sun and wind crusts on SE aspects when climbing up from the creek and onto the SE ramp, but it was in pretty good condition overall. Dug a pit on a SE aspect at 8,700', on a slope around 35 degrees. Total snow depth of 175cm--about 30cm of windpacked new snow. On an extended column test, cracks formed at 55cm (ECT 13) on the interface between the storm snow and the old crust but nothing propagated. Seems to be bonding reasonably well--I was able to pull the storm slab off the column from the back with the shovel, but it wasn't a clean sliding surface. I did observe some facets around the crust at 85cm, which sits on top of a couple feet of basal rounds--so those deep layers are still something to watch out for--but nothing reacted during my tests and I felt confident about skiing down from the top of St. Joe's peak through some wonderful boot-top powder.