Lawinenlagebericht

Mt Hood

Northwest Avalanche Center
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Lawinengefahr

Tue
Hochgebirge
2 · Mässig
Waldgrenze
2 · Mässig
Unterhalb
2 · Mässig
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Veraltet — dieser Lagebericht ist 7 months ago abgelaufen. Du siehst vergangene Verhältnisse, nicht den aktuellen Bericht.

Kernpunkte

Start your day with options so you can easily escape warming slopes as the sun weakens the snow surface. Look for rollerballs, pinwheels, and layers of snow fanning out as obvious signs that the snow surface is becoming wet and weak. Triggering stiff slabs of wind-drifted snow is unlikely - but not impossible- in steep, upper elevation terrain. 

Lawinenprobleme

  • Loose Wet

    • Hochgebirge
    • Waldgrenze
    • Unterhalb der Waldgrenze
    Wahrscheinlichkeit
    Possible
    Größe
    1–2

    Loose wet avalanches will continue to peel off steep slopes as warm air floods into the region. These wet loose instabilities are becoming more widespread as each day trends warmer. On Sunday, there were plenty of rollerballs and wet snow surfaces along sun exposed slopes, especially around middle elevations and rocky areas. Look for this problem to become more widespread and slowly creep onto east and west aspects. 

    Fortunately, this problem is pretty straightforward to anticipate. Watch for rollerballs, sticky snow surface, and layers of snow fanning out beneath your machine or feet as clear signs that the snow surface is wet and weak. Pay attention to your aspect and have options so you can easily escape onto shadier slopes if wet snow instabilities become concerning. We have enough new snow over a crust that some wet loose avalanches could grow large in specific terrain. Don’t underestimate this problem, especially if there are terrain traps present, such as creeks, trees, or deep depressions like you see in this photo. 

    (1/11/2026)

    Many sun-exposed slopes showed signs of warming on Sunday.  Creeks like this could easily exacerbate the consequences of a small avalanche. 

    Photo: Joe Dellaporta

Avalanche Discussion

On Friday, January 9th, four backcountry skiers were caught and carried by a large avalanche while descending near Longs Pass in the Teanaway River drainage. The slide occurred on an S to SE facing slope at approximately 6200ft. One member of the party was not buried. Another teammate was partially buried but injured. The other two individuals were fully buried. During the initial rescue, the team located one of the buried victims, who did not survive. Despite the group's best efforts, they could not pinpoint the fourth member of their team. The party contacted 911 via a satellite device, and Kittitas County Search and Rescue responded to the area on Friday evening. Additional rescue efforts were postponed until daylight. Search and Rescue then returned to the site on Saturday and were joined by NWAC forecasters. The teams were able to locate the remaining victim. Unfortunately, neither of the fully buried skier survived. Our deepest condolences to the family, friends, and community of those involved in this avalanche accident. S-SE aspect, 6200ft, Avg Depth 2ft, HS-AS-R3-D2.5-O

Discussion:

We’re heading into a warm and dry period in the Mt. Hood zone. Freezing levels will start pushing up to 11,000 ft on Monday, and look for little change in the extended outlook. Fortunately, we’re dodging the precipitation with this system, and skies should stay generally clear. This should help north and some east facing slopes stay cold while sunny slopes start a freeze & cycle. 

While we are warming up, there were still some small amounts of blowing snow on Sunday, and look for this to continue across upper elevations and the upper mountain through the day on Monday. With that, keep wind slabs on your radar as you climb into upper elevation terrain. Most of these slabs are likely trending unreactive at this point, but there may still be isolated unstable pockets of stiff, wind slabs kicking around. The most likely place you would trigger one of these would be on a steep, unsupported terrain feature with wind-stiffened surfaces. You should absolutely default to less steep terrain if you notice cracking or if the slab sounds hollow like a drum. 

This past week brought 20-30 inches of new snow that fell over a stout crust on January 3rd. We saw a few large to very large natural avalanches that likely ran on or above this crust during the stormy period on Jan 6th-8th ( Obs 1, Obs 2). Since the storm ended, avalanche activity and signs of instability have been confined to wind-drifted terrain. The upper snowpack is heavily wind affected. Below the surface, the snowpack is generally strong and well bonded to the underlying January 3rd crust. 

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