Plumes of snow blowing off Mount Stimson were visible from Highway 2 at roughly 9:00am. At 11am it was in the mid-20's at 6000', with wind from the SW with moderate and strong gusts. There was plenty of cold, faceted powder on wind-sheltered, shady slopes, but my tour by-passed this bounty in favor of the views on the higher, wind-effected terrain. Yesterday's tracks were completely filled-in on large leeward slopes for about the first 1000' below the mid-7000' ridgetops. Observed wind-loading onto NE-facing slopes, and also quite a bit of snow being blown off and sublimating instead of being deposited. Found fresh windslabs, both soft and hard, from 4 to 10 inches thick (and growing) near the top of leeward terrain above 7000'. Did not manage to trigger any slabs by slope cutting or by trundling a small cornice. Observed no shooting cracks, but avoided wind-loaded terrain anyway. Retreated to the wind-sheltered powder playground. Did not travel on any sun-exposed terrain, but saw very few small, loose, wet sloughs that occurred on 2/22, with a large number of the same from previous days. Surface hoar was not widely preserved on the upper elevation terrain I travelled on. Attached a photo of a small slab on a SE-facing apron that may have been triggered by a point release a few days ago.
