Lawinenlagebericht

Mt Hood

Northwest Avalanche Center
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Lawinengefahr

Wed
Hochgebirge
2 · Mässig
Waldgrenze
2 · Mässig
Unterhalb
1 · Gering
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Veraltet — dieser Lagebericht ist 6 months ago abgelaufen. Du siehst vergangene Verhältnisse, nicht den aktuellen Bericht.

Kernpunkte

New snow accumulations and increasing winds are keeping wind slabs fresh and reactive. These slabs may range from soft and shallow to stiff, and a couple of feet thick in heavily loaded terrain. You can reduce your exposure by sticking to more wind-sheltered terrain where the powder skiing and riding are excellent. 

Lawinenprobleme

  • Wind Slabs

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

    The winds ramped up on Monday afternoon and productively drifted large amounts of new snow into soft and hard wind slabs, depending on elevation and exposure to the wind. Storm totals are pushing close to a foot near Timberline as of Monday evening, so slab depths could range from 1-3 ft in heavily loaded terrain. Cold temperatures may help keep slabs reactive to a person's weight, especially in areas where they may be resting over weak layers from the recent high pressure. 

    Visual clues like blowing snow, stiff-textured surfaces, and sharp drifts can help you identify where the wind has been at work. Small test slopes and simple snowpack tests can provide useful information for soft slabs in more confined terrain, but they may not tell the full story for larger slopes harboring thicker, hard slabs. Expect these areas to feel stiff, textured, and drum-like. Hard slabs are tricky avalanche problems to manage since they don’t often provide reliable feedback, so consider giving large leeward terrain features a couple of days to heal up.

    Shooting cracks, whumphing, or propagating test results are all great reasons to dial back your terrain. You can reduce your exposure to this problem by sticking to ridges and wind sheltered slopes that hold excellent powder riding. 

    Additional Discussion:

    Triggering avalanches in more wind-sheltered terrain is less likely, but not impossible, given the amount of new snow stacking up over potential weak layers. You can help stack the odds in your favor by digging down and looking for unstable test results before riding steep, open slopes.  

    (2/16/2026)

    Triggering small slabs on test slopes felt easy on Monday afternoon as winds increased. 

    Photo: Joe Dellaporta

Avalanche Discussion

Riding conditions have improved dramatically with 6-11 inches of low-density new snowfall as of Monday evening. Timberline outpaced Meadows with a storm total of 11 inches. Monday started fairly calm, but winds ramped up during the afternoon and drifted copious amounts of new snow into the canyons and along leeward terrain. By Monday afternoon, I was easily triggering small, stiff wind slabs on test slopes that ranged from 6-10 inches at 6000 ft.  

Tuesday is shaping up to be a proper winter day with cold temperatures and possibly several more inches of low-density fluff. While wind slabs should be your primary concern, still consider loose snow avalanches in very steep terrain. These may range from dry to ‘moist’ on south-facing slopes during sun breaks. 

Avalanche professionals across the region continue to find weak layers in the upper 1-2 ft of the snowpack from our recent high pressure. Here on Mt. Hood, these may range from isolated areas of buried surface hoar or facets adjacent to a crust or a layer of preserved stellars that have consistently shown the ability to fail with snowpack tests. We’re still in the early stages of tracking these layers, so do your homework and approach steep terrain conservatively. 

We could use the observations as winter finally makes a return. Let us know what you see by submitting an observation here or on the AvyApp.

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