Stevens - Thursday 2-23

Excellent day at Stevens today. Tuesday/Wednesday's rain/snow along with being closed on Wednesday made the entire mountain as smooth as i can remember. there was a firm layer with soft powder on top, made for some great high speed powder turns. everything seemed very consolidated.
In wind blown areas the firm layer was exposed but most areas had very soft snow. Also there were some interesting windblow features from the recent storm. Only down low could you feel the crust under the powder.
Seems like every other person is wearing a go pro these days, guess i have to get me one.

Yeah that was a good day at Stevens.
Light crowd considering it was a school break day, maybe the higher totals at Alpy helped deflect those without a seasons pass encouraged loyalty? Or maybe casual crowd shying away because of yesterdays pass closure?
Hiked up to ropeline and view of Highland and its crown line. What is almost scarier than fact that the whole bowl slid is that yesterday at 11:30 from a distance, you could barely see the line. The wind had already filled in most of the gap below the wall, only an inch or two of lip to show the progression of the line remained. Probably by now it is  invisible. So now there's 2 feet of recent slab on a slide surface, waiting there to tempt the unwary and uninformed. Yikes.
Can't really comment on overall stability, I made conscious effort to stay under initiation angle. What snow I got moving was only sluffing, on gully edges and such.
Only made it to destinations on north side backside today plus 1 run Corona and Shims (both good), and then groomers in later afternoon while skiing with kids. So no info on 7th or thereabouts conditions, or Rooster etc. But in that north backside, good conditions. Fairly light new snow over either a fast base or a gradual right side up solidifying. More firm base when under trees, but even that was good save for about the last 500 feet of vertical over Mill Valley, where rain must've been warm enough to cause much more major snowbomb and treedrip irregularities to the underlying crust. As far as groomers, amazingly smooth under and then with perfect amount packed powder on top to give definition and control. Best groomer conditions I've seen there this season (and that because of the rain/closure probably as C Horton suggests, not midnight cat tilling).
Weather a true mix. Winds never too bad. Some light snow as pellets or needles.  Re windblown features: saw some amazing insta cornices at entrances to Shim's, in a spot that's just the tiniest change of angle, not a ridgeline at all. Looked at Wed's telemetry and yeah it was definitely blowing hard ...