East Slopes North

Steer around steep slopes in wind-affected terrain below ridgelines where you are more likely to trigger an avalanche. South and West aspects might be more problematic, where slabs could fail on a weak layer over a crust.  Small avalanches on weak snow are also possible in wind-sheltered terrain, so heed warnings, like shooting cracks, as a sign to choose lower-angle slopes. 

There hasn't been significant recent snow, but the wind, sun, and weak layers in the snowpack have quickly transformed our generally safe snowpack into a more complex and problematic one over the last few days. We'll have one more day of relatively cold temperatures on Monday before things really heat up, and we anticipate rapidly deteriorating snow stability. Expect some clearing again on Monday, so sunny slopes could experience another round of warming that induces loose avalanches or creates a more cohesive slab over our various crusts and weak layers. If you feel the snow warm up, get sticky, or begin to rollerball, consider moving to shady or lower-angle terrain. 

On Sunday, observers reported warming and rollerballs on southwest slopes, so expect to find a new surface crust on these slopes on Monday. I spent the last few days in the Washington Pass area. Soft, dry snow was the norm late in the week, with isolated pockets of small wind slabs near ridgelines in an expected pattern. Unexpected was an avalanche on Poster/Pika Peak that stepped down into older, deeper snow layers. While this avalanche occurred in very steep, unsupported terrain and may have been triggered by a cornice fall, it's enough to keep uncertainty about these older layers in our forecast. Friday brought 6-8 inches of snow to the area with moderate winds, and this quickly formed touchy wind slabs along ridgelines that were especially easy to trigger where they formed over weak snow on a sun crust from New Year's. This storm also buried a widespread surface hoar layer throughout the area. Other professional observers and I found this surface-hoar layer reactive in snowpack tests. Test slopes on north and east-facing, steep terrain did not produce any results on this layer. But I suspect this is only due to the lack of slab character of the overlaying snow. As the structure of the snow changes with warm temperatures, it may become a persistent weak layer that we need to tiptoe around for a while. 

Snow totals throughout this past week are between 2-4 feet above 4000ft. Near Washington Pass, a thin crust buried around the Solstice can typically be found about 2 feet below the surface with snowpack depths averaging 5 feet.  In the foothills and eastern portion of the zone, you may find similar amounts of recent snow, but there may be more weak layers than at the Cascade crest.  Snow depths are roughly 2-3 feet. Pay attention to red flag signs of instability, such as whumping collapses, and consider digging down to identify potential weak layers.

You can contribute to the avalanche forecast. Please let us know what you see in the mountains by submitting an observation.