Quick report
Skinned up to the south bowl of Stevens Peak along the Crater Lake road. HS 20-30cm along much of the road with occasional bare patches. No red flags observed on our ascent but we dug a pit to see if basal facets were present in this area before poking into steeper terrain. Pit dug at treeline around 9,175' an a 28 degree ENE aspect around 10:30. HS 75cm. While digging the pit, the snow was easily fracturing along a plane at about 37cm. 4cm of new soft snow with dense 1F snow below to 7cm and with loose facets below that. Observed CT 13 RP @59 and CT 14 SC @7. A photo of the bottom of the column is attached which has an interesting structure. Also pictured is the planar surface at 37cm (which did not fail in the compression test but was observed while digging the pit). Based on these results and lots of visible obstacles we stuck to lower angle terrain and found very fun skiing in the shallow loose snow on top of the firmer snow. Even skiing down the road back to the highway was decent though it was starting to get warm and expect it might be crusty tomorrow.