Quick report
Interesting conditions on Stevens Peak today. Early on the largely east-facing approach, the snow surface was mostly a melt-freeze crust, although there were a few patches of soft wind-blown snow. I busted out the ski crampons for a couple hundred feet around the 8200' range as the crust was quite firm. On the edge of the bottom bowl, I found several isolated areas of wind slab on north-facing slopes. The southern slopes of the lower bowl were scoured and didn't appear to have received any recent wind-deposited snow. Higher in the bowl conditions were a mix of crusts, wind-textured firm snow and soft, loose wind deposits. When I was on a ridge the winds were strong and cold but not bad in the bowl. During the biggest gusts, I could see minor snow transport. Descending the bowl was fast and efficient. Below about 8400 on the descent around 1:30 pm the snow was a soft and on its way to corn but not quite there yet.