Oh baby! After a foot+ of fresh fell in the east slopes Monday and Tuesday this week, the temperatures stayed cold and gave the snow a chance to settle. Loern and I headed to the Crystal lot Saturday morning and were skinning up Norse by 9:30. After a bit of bushwacking at the beginning (seems standard for Norse) we hooked up with the skin track made earlier in the week and followed that all the way to the top.
Because the snow had come in with high south-westerly winds, the N and NE slopes were a bit windloaded, although people had skiied the east-facing Cement Basin earlier in the week and there was no visible slide activity. The ridge tops were pretty scoured, but in the trees and the shallow valleys the snow was deep and unconsolidated.
The day was absolutely perfect. About 20 degrees and very little wind. It had blown up to 50mph the night before but once the sun came out it really calmed down. The views were incredible with Rainier, Adams and the entire Cascade range out in full glory.
Bottomless powder was our reward for the climb - the top 1000' was superb, then below that 
the sun started affecting the snow.
the sun started affecting the snow.
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