East Slopes South

Quiet weather promotes an improvement in stability. Your primary concerns are isolated, smaller avalanches in wind-drifted snow or wet avalanches once surficial crusts break down on sunny slopes. A firm crust may be exposed in some areas, so make sure you can arrest a fall on a steep slope.

You can expect to find average depths of a dusting to 6" of dry snow sitting on the early February crust. The most recent snow has fallen in the Ahtanum Meadows area. Last Friday, in nearby East Central, Katie Warren found widespread surface hoar and an inch of weak, faceted snow above 5700ft on the Early February Crust. These weak surfaces make for good sliding surfaces, and wind slabsmay take longer to heal than normal. In isolated areas, particularly at upper elevations, wind drifts may rest on a weaker early February crust interface and could could surprise you. You're most likely to trigger a wind drift on the N or E sides of ridgelines. Visual clues such as textured surfaces, corniced ridges, and drift formations around rocks or trees can all point you to wind-loaded terrain. 

Use small test slopes to identify instability. Shooting cracks or mini avalanches on test slopes is a good sign that wind slabs are reactive. Slopes below corniced ridges and confined alpine features like steep couloirs and sharp ridgelines are likely spots for wind slabs. Consider the consequences of even a small avalanche in very steep rocky terrain. 

Limited sunshine Tuesday afternoon may have started wet loose activity on aspects receiving direct radiation with variable surficial crusts on these aspects by Wednesday. If the sun comes out, expect these crusts to break down opening the door for shallow wet loose avalanches.  These avalanches often initiate from steep rocks or trees shedding snow onto the slope below. While there isn't much snow to entrain above the slick early February crust, these avalanches could pick up steam on a sufficiently long steep slope. Consider moving to shady slopes or lower-angle terrain if you start noticing the snow surfaces beginning to rollerball in the sunshine. An avalanche may become large enough to bury you in a terrain trap such as a creek or gully.

The snowpack has endured a beating over the past week with several inches of rain and warm temperatures. Reports of new large and very large avalanches from Ahtanum Meadows, Crystal Mountain, and East Central flowed in almost daily from January 21st through February 1st, when temperatures finally dropped below freezing. We are still looking for old crowns and avalanche debris to understand the full extent of this warm, wet storm and prolonged avalanche cycle. If you find evidence of an avalanche that we haven't logged in our avalanche observations, take a photo and let us know by submitting a public observation! Even if you don't see any avalanches, we'd love to hear about what you did find out in the mountains, and it helps shape a more accurate avalanche forecast.