Quick report
When descending the Fuhrer Finger from the summit on Thursday afternoon, we began to see signs of loose-wet instability in the form of saturated snow and sluff around 10,500 ft. The sluffing remained small and did not entrain throughout the descent. Near the base of the finger (~8500ft) we noticed a D2 wet slab avalanche had occurred on a SE aspect. As we descended further down the basin we found several other wet slab avalanches had occurred from D1-D3 primarily on SE aspects (but also on some E and S aspects), with many spanning and/or linking terrain features. Lower down, much of the Nisqually chute had slid in what appeared to be a wet loose. All avalanches observed were between 9000 ft and 6500 ft and are believed to have occurred naturally earlier in the day. Certainly something to be cognizant of with the increasing temperatures forecasted through the weekend.
Avalanche
- Size
- D2.5
- Type
- WL
- Count
- 2
- Aspect
- S
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 8000 ft
Several apparently natural wet slab avalanches on SE and S aspects, ranging from D1 to D2+ occurred at some point before mid-afternoon Thursday.