East Slopes South

While generally safe conditions exist, that doesn't mean it's impossible to trigger avalanches. Ridgeline winds will pick up, and there may be small pockets of unstable wind-drifted snow, particularly in alpine areas near the Cascade Crest. Practice safe travel techniques and group management to reduce the consequences of any small avalanches.

With previous winds, warm temperatures, and sun creating crusts on many aspects, there likely isn't much soft snow to drift around. However, isolated pockets near the Crest could have enough snow to drift into small wind slabs. The most likely locations to trigger wind slabs will be in alpine terrain, on terrain features such as very steep slopes below corniced ridges, the base of cliffs, confined chutes, and gullies which are all prime trigger spots.

The recent warm temperatures and sunshine melted snow surfaces, which are now refrozen and presenting challenging travel conditions. So anticipate slippery melt-freeze crusts and refrozen "chunder" under the forest canopy.

The MLK crust remains a prominent marker in the upper snowpack. Last Wednesday, NWAC forecaster Joe Dellaporta found this layer 1-2' below the snow surface. While some weak snow is associated with the crust, snowpack tests where they traveled did not produce propagating test results. The weakest snow associated with this interface (rounding facets)was on shaded aspects (NW-N-NE) above 6500 ft.