Lawinenlagebericht

Stevens Pass

Northwest Avalanche Center
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Lawinengefahr

Tue
Hochgebirge
3 · Erheblich
Waldgrenze
3 · Erheblich
Unterhalb
2 · Mässig
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Kernpunkte

A wet, saturated upper snowpack and continued warm temperatures will maintain dangerous avalanche conditions through Monday. Natural avalanches are still possible. Avoid travel on or below big, steep slopes, cornices, cliffs, and rocky terrain covered in snow.

Lawinenprobleme

  • Wet Slabs

    • Hochgebirge
    • Waldgrenze
    • Unterhalb der Waldgrenze
    Wahrscheinlichkeit
    Possible
    Größe
    2–3

    Well-above-normal temperatures and a weak snowpack structure ask for continued caution. Travel and riding conditions are less than desirable, so there isn’t really much reason to head into steep terrain.

    Wet avalanches will have an even lower likelihood in the coming days, but any you do find will probably be large and powerful with thick, wet, chunky debris. The easiest solution will be to skip travel on or under steep slopes until the snowpack has a chance to stabilize and temperatures trend more seasonal.

    Even if avoiding travel on steep slopes, the best policy would be to also pay close attention to what is above you.  Stay out from under cornices that could fall and trigger a larger avalanche on the slope below. Glide cracks indicate where the entire snowpack is slipping and could fail on the smooth ground underneath it.

    (1/28/2024)

    Looking up the path of a fresh, D2.5 wet slab avalanche.  

    Photo: SPMR

Avalanche Discussion

As of Sunday evening, Stevens Pass picked up about 0.6" of rain in the last 24 hours. Despite the paltry precipitation compared to other west slope forecast zones, Stevens still saw some natural activity with a handful of wet avalanches to D2 along the Hwy 2 corridor Avalanche control work at Stevens Pass Mountain Resort also produced avalanches that broke into older, deeper layers that have been lingering in the snowpack since late December. 

An NWAC Forecast team traveled towards Lake Valhalla. While they didn’t see much recent avalanche activity, they did find plenty of wet, unsupportable snow. Travel conditions alone might have kept them out of steep terrain. You can read their observation here.

Some very large avalanches ran on deeper weak layers within the Solstice Crust sandwich earlier in the month. Regionally, very large slides have been triggered on a similar old crust layer at Mission Ridge on Wednesday and Crystal Mountain on Tuesday (see photo). This crust and facet complex is now 4-5 feet below the surface in much of the zone. Last week, observers reported sudden and propagating test results on this weak layer. If you venture to the eastern half of the zone, it would be worth reading the East Central forecast. If you make it out, please share what you found with an observation.

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