Quick report
gnarly inversion layer, trailhead was 17 F in the morning at 8 AM when we started. As we climbed, a very cool fog/inversion layer could be seen all the way from Steven’s pass well out into eastern Washington, dominating the skyline. That fog layer seemed to sit at about 4000 feet. temperatures did seem to climb to about 30 in the middle of the day and there was some softening on middle elevation south slopes, but in general conditions were heinously hard, with Monster wind effect (sastrugi) and rain effect(deep rain runnels ) features in the snow. Some surface hoar forming in shaded wind protected areas, but not widely present. About a dozen good turns were had. Other than that, it was sideslip city. Weather was beautiful , with views from Baker down to Rainier. snowpack was strong, some might say bulletproof. Lots of frozen roller balls as evidence of past warm slopes, but there were no warm slopes to be had today outside of about 300 feet of mid elevation corn as referenced earlier.