Powder

Dense Loose

Wind Crust

Wind did come out of the east as expected. In the low elevation band winds were light to moderate. At middle elevation winds were moderate to strong, with drifting and transport starting at Dead Tree continuing up along the ridge toward the saddle and Bailey's Cirque. The Saddle was wind affected and drifted, but generally soft slabs where drifting was present, or otherwise locked in hard from scouring and packing. Minimal cornicing was present, even at the high elevations. Small cornices facing east (typical) were present along the summit ridgeline. Cornices and wind lips were starting to build facing west (atypical/reversed from normal). The summit pyramid had minor sastrugi with dense snow and/or wind scour and rime. Despite this it skied pretty consistently, not so different from hard packed groomer. The saddle had some drifting but was otherwise dense wind affected snow. Below this, frankly, everything skied quite nicely with either soft fresh snow (and a bit of surface graupel here and there) or slightly more dense snow with minor wind affects. Some wind drifts were noted, but truly stiff and significant slabs were hard to find. The stiffest snow also tended to be thin and breakable crust on the skin up.