Wind Effect on Stevens Peak

I toured with a guest into the east bowl of Stevens Peak today, looking for some protected snow that hadn't been impacted by yesterday's winds. Having been on Red Lake Peak yesterday, I had seen that the south face of Stevens had gotten scoured by the wind (photo 1, taken Dec 30). Without leaving the car this morning, the first thing I noticed was that there was much less blowing snow from the summits than yesterday. That held true throughout our tour. We mostly saw light blowing snow along the surface, compared to the extensive plumes I saw coming off the ridgelines yesterday.

On our approach to Stevens from the east, I noticed around 8000' that even with quite a few trees around, and away from any ridges, the snow was already significant affected by the wind, with widespread sastrugi and wind drifts (photo 2). As we entered the bowl, I could see sastrugi throughout much of the terrain (photo 3), and felt my ski penetration reduce to just a couple of inches. I was just a little surprised to not see any signs of recent wind slab avalanches off of the ridges. We gained the ridgeline northeast of the summit, and found a north-facing treed slope that offered soft, cold snow that was unaffected by the recent winds. 

Once we returned to lower elevation terrain closer to the car, I noticed some trees dripping, with icicles hanging from their branches (photo 4), and others melted clean. This melt was happening due largely to solar impact, since my car thermometer read 30F when we left just a bit later.