If you have a half day, you can drive 20 all the way to Silver Star Creek. There's plenty of tasty snow up there for turns. When I was there in late January, the snow pack became reasonable for cross country travel around 3000 feet--not sure what elevation Cassal is at.
Thanks andyrew. We decided to take the AT gear and had fun. Cassal sits at about 3800' on a south facing hill. There was a descent snowpack at the hut, but it is quickly melting away below. xc travel on all of the Rendezvous trails is still good due to the grooming. There is a small butte just behind the hut - we skied the northeast and south aspects - short but sweet. Rendezvous or Fawn peaks look like great ski touring peaks and now that we have a lay of the land we'll be back to check those out.
We found good stability. Our hand pits on S and NE aspects between 3600' and 4200' showed the 6" of new that fell friday & friday night was well bonded with the existing snowpack.
Paresh
