Seattle Ridge

We toured up Seattle Ridge to get eyes on terrain on the motorized side of the pass after the strong Sunday storm, see how much coverage has improved, and to start painting a picture of the current state of the snowpack on Seattle Ridge. We found variable surface conditions with crust capped powder at lower elevations and wind-stiffened snow and rime-crust up higher. Alders are getting laid down but most are still standing or half down on the up-track, these snow conditions and alder conditions made travel difficult and it was easy to accidently get lost in deep alder pits and very deep creek runnels. We got propagating results (ECTP24 1.5ft down) in one of our pits at 2400'. Fun skiing was found above 1900' on some backcountry groomer snow and weak surface crusts that skied like half-frozen corn. 

As of 4pm when we were leaving the field all pull-outs and lots were well plowed!

No red flags were observed. Large cornice chunks had broken off into Zero and Warm-up bowls (from 1/12 storm) and did not appear to have triggered any avalanches.

Variable surface conditions exist. Travel from the road to about 1900' was difficult as alders are barely laid over by 1-1.5ft of soft snow capped with a thin surface crust. Often we would break deep into the snowpack through ~4ft alder holes allowing for some wallowing experience. Above 1900' where the surface melt-freeze crust was less present, we found patches of wind-stiffened snow and soft snow. At and near ridgetop snow surfaces were widely wind-affected and there was exposed rime-crust.

We dug two pits throughout the day, one at 2100' and another at 2400'. We got no resuts in our ECT test at the lower pit, finding ~2ft of snow from storms over past week sitting on top of old, melt-freeze crusts from earlier in the season. In our upper pit we got propagating results (ECTP24 and PST 45/100 END 1.5ft down from surface) below a thin crust buried by the 01/12 storm.