East Slopes North

Stay alert to snow surface conditions, and move off of steep slopes when you begin to sink into wet snow deeper than your ankle. Look for signs of loose wet avalanches such as rollerballs or wet, sticky snow. Steer around areas prone to difficult to predict hazards such as cornice fall.

About 2" of snow fell at Washington Pass on Sunday night. You may be able to find isolated areas of shallow wind slab at upper elevations leftover from this. You can use small test slopes to check how the new snow is bonding. Steer around consequential terrain if you find reactive wind slabs or more new snow.

Professional guides noted several small loose wet avalanches on steep south facing slopes on Tuesday. With warmer temperatures on Wednesday, you may once again be able to trigger these on lower elevation slopes later in the day. Consider that even low elevation north-facing slopes could warm up by the afternoon. We are showing Moderate below treeline for Thursday because it may rain to around 4,500ft, creating wet loose danger on many slopes that currently hold dry snow. Once you begin to sink into the snow surface past your ankle, it's time to move on to a different aspect or less consequential slopes. Look for rollerballs and fresh, fan shaped avalanches as signs of these. 

Attempt to make any up tracks well out of the path of any potential cornice falls. While on ridgelines give cornices a wide margin, as they can break back further than you might expect.  Recent observations note large to very large cornice collapses in the Highway 20 area.