Just under 3,000 metres (9,800 feet) altitude, a few degrees below zero, clear blue sky. A light breeze comes around every so often, picking up snow off of the mountain top, and you can see some of the white flakes sparkle in the sun as they fly by. The snow on the slopes is perfect (squeaky when you step through it) and there's a foot of fresh powder off-piste - still intact from the other day's heavy snowfall.
Ideal weather, breathtaking views, and crisp high mountain air.
Having such a bright scene, lit up by the sun and its reflection off the pure white snow, a negative exposure compensation of a couple stops was mandatory. With more than enough light, I set the aperture to f/10 (to maximize sharpness across the scene) and the ISO to its lowest setting of 100. This gave me a super quick shutter speed of 1/1000th of a second!
I pretty much always shoot in aperture priority mode and set my ISO manually; this allows me to control the depth of field and get the highest level of detail / sharpness.