Quick report
We skied the Chiwaukum Traverse in a single day from south to north on Sunday, mostly as described in the Volken guidebook. In general, it was a beautiful day with atrocious skiing conditions throughout. The Icicle road is snow covered past Johnny Creek, although we were able to drive to within ~2.5 miles of the Chatter Creek trailhead. The trail is bare until ~4500 feet. Southern aspects began to soften in the sun in some places, but northern aspects remained extremely firm all day. It was pleasant in the sun, with air temps in the alpine remaining just below freezing. We were struck by the low snowpack even up high: the north bowl of Snowgrass had substantial patches of bare talus, the Big Chiwaukum Couloir looked barely in, and the bowl immediately south of Cup Lake is melted out to be barely skiable despite being at ~6,000 feet on northern aspects. We exited via the Swath, taking the logging road at 3,800 feet and found the road to be slow skiing, with lots of bare sections, logs, and open creeks. We switched to booting but found that to be unpleasantly post-holey and so switched back to skis for Whitepine Road, which is mostly snowcovered except for flowing water in places until reaching Cascade Meadows. We saw no signs of instability (no pinwheels or roller balls) but some truly massive crowns and debris piles from older avalanches that presumably came down during last week's atmospheric river.