Rapid loading and increasing winds on Tamarack

Toured up S slopes of Tamarack again today. The widespread crust from yesterday could still be felt probing with our ski poles, but was well-buried under 6-10 inches of new, right-side up snow. The snow had not been wind affected yet, even on exposed S facing slopes. Winds at the start of the day (around 9) weren't as strong as we had anticipated (maybe occasional gusts 25-30 mph), although visibility was still quite limited. Around 10, the winds and snowfall rates increased noticeably; we turned around just below the top of Tamarack and strong SW winds were gusting around 40-50 mph. Ski pen varied from 4-6 inches during our tour. We encountered large drifts from the last few weeks of storms while skiing down the low angle mixed tree/open terrain on the S slopes. Areas that had deep snowmobile tracks yesterday were mostly or completely filled in. Even with the strong winds toward the end of our tour (around 10:30 AM), we did not encounter any increasing stiffness of the surface snow or cracking.