A lotta snow

Toured up the North aspect of Snowshed Mtn. Descended a W/NW aspect into Essex Creek. 

• Weather
  Skies: Clear
  Temperature: Below Freezing
  Winds: Light Variable
• Experienced minor collapsing in the 4500-5500' range as we climbed. No shooting cracks or signs of instability otherwise
• Above 6000', ski penetration was waist deep and unconsolidated storm snow totaled in the 3ft range from Fri/Sat system. 
• Skied a short lap on an East facing aspect (7300-7000'); minor wind affect as the basin is rather sheltered. 
• Strong easterly winds from the Arctic intrusion were apparent on surrounding peaks (see photo). Surprisingly, very few naturals observed. I did notice a deep slab release off the South shoulder of Mt. Adams. (see photo)  Forecaster Comment: This slide likely ran on 2/8/18. We first spotted it on 2/12/18.  
• Dropped into our run from a timbered saddle @ 7300',  although the very-most upper section was loaded, we found unconsolidated storm snow a mere 50ft from the ridge.
• As we descended:
  -7000-6000: Plenty of sluff occurring, enough to knock a skier down. Mitigated the hazard by sticking to moderate slope angles. 
  -6000-4000': entered the "crust" zone, small storm slabs (30cm) were running atop a density change within the recent storm snow. We popped out of the trees for a bit and found minor soft slabs developing; they were easy to trigger in small confined pockets and ran very little distance (100-200ft).
• As we toured out Essex Creek, most of the North chutes had D1-D2 piles of sluff from loose dry avys during the last storm cycle.