Loose Wet Snow on Stevens Peak

On our drive down, we could see recent loose wet activity on Jakes, Flagpole, Echo, and Red Lake Peak. It was already quite warm when we got to the trailhead for Stevens Peak and we found wet snow on a supportable crust as soon as we left the car. By 11:00 am, stepping off our skis would result in sinking ankle deep into wet snow but the crust would still support a person on skis. We continued to step off our skis periodically to check on how deep the wet snow was. It continued to be between ankle and boot top deep but the crust remained ski supportable through our whole tour. We knew that this could change quickly so stuck to low angle routes to avoid steeper wet slopes. We found that Monday night's snow was only about 2-3 cm (1 inch) deep in most places with a little more at the upper elevations. 

On the ridge above 9300 ft, we started encountering some areas of recent wind affected snow up to 10 cm (4 inches) deep on the N and NE aspects. By the time we descended at 12:15, we found wet, sticky, slow snow on all sun-exposed aspects. The recent snow had not fully transitioned into corn snow. Ski cuts on steep slopes triggered roller balls and pinwheels and we saw one other party trigger a larger, but still D1 loose wet sluff, on a steeper more open slope. Driving back north on 89 we also additional loose wet activity on Tallac and Maggies.