Our main takeaway from the day is that while on some aspects and elevations you may be dealing with wet snow problems, in some locations we're still dealing with cold snow issues, like wind-drifted soft slabs.
The road had minimal snow coverage, making travel in trail runners the best option, with brief 200–300' sections of postholing through snow on the approach. Overall, the main path had enough coverage to skin up the apron (if you're willing to navigate some vegetation). Just above 9,000', we found the climber's R side of the feature wind loaded, with cold, dry snow drifts up to 3 feet deep on top of the old snow surface in spots.
Wind loading with new snow on the climber's R side of Cold Fusion was noticeable from the road. However, we agreed that due to decreasing sensitivity, we weren’t concerned about triggering from below, so we continued up while continually evaluating the snow. The mid feature cliff band had plenty of coverage on the climber's R due to wind loading, making it skiable.
Near 9,800', we found the wind loading to be unreactive, but chose to continue uphill travel out of the gut of the feature. Poking back into the feature near the grouping of trees around 10,200', we evaluated the slope above us: wind-loaded with a continuous, seemingly well-connected slab of cold, dry, wind-pressed snow, up to 3 feet deep where we felt comfortable assessing it (well off to the shoulder). Keeping in mind the activity on nearby Box Elder this weekend, and how those slides lined up with our observations, this is where we decided to turn around. We enjoyed cold, soft powder turns on skiers L, and corn on skiers R.
Large graupel midway up the slope below cliff band
