Went to Stevens, considered doing a backside tour, settled on staying in-bounds owing to the deep, fresh Cascade Concrete (6-12"+ of new). Good coverage on runs, sketchy coverage off of runs - Tye Bowl, for example, was pretty poorly covered.
Visibility was pretty poor on the top half of the mountain, with another 4-5" of very wet, very cohesive snow falling during the day.
Talked to Ski Patrol - they reported seeing natural releases on the backside during the day. For practice, hiked up the ridge on the backside past the Tye Mill chair, and dug a pit off the ridge going down to the backside, looking for windloading (following the NWAC report); found a 165 cm snowpack, with a ~55 cm layer of very cohesive wet powder (fist penetration) over 110 cm of slightly denser snow (1 finger penetration). Did two column compression tests, both failed around CT23-24 (3rd or 4th shoulder tap), with the upper 55 cm column sliding as a slightly crumbly soft slab.
Probably stable enough for a lower-angle tour on the backside, but we didn't relish the idea of setting a skin track up back through it.
Ski Patrol and lift ops also were doing backside lift prep for a potential weekend opening of the backside.
