Stevens Pass

You should continue to find generally safe avalanche conditions throughout much of the Steven’s Pass zone on Thursday. Keep an eye out for wind-drifted pockets or light and fluffy snow sliding quickly on the underlying firm surface.

Steven’s Pass received about 2-3” of new snow during the latest storm, which simply isn’t enough to drive much avalanche hazard. Still, you could have some small Dry Loose avalanches (sluffs) or shallow Wind Slabs to manage. Any potential avalanche should be small but could run far and fast on the underlying firm surfaces created by last week’s atmospheric river event. Be sure not to get tripped up by one in consequential terrain or near terrain traps.

In the neighboring Snoqualmie Pass zone, we have good confirmation of hard Wind Slabs overlaying faceted snow on northerly slopes at upper elevations. We do not have any information about similar conditions at Steven’s Pass, but take this into consideration during your travels and be leery if you notice a shady slope is wind-loaded.

You could find that one of the bigger challenges is dealing with difficult travel conditions. A few inches of fresh snow certainly helped, but in most areas wasn’t enough to cover up the widespread avalanche debris, open creeks, rain runnels, or other variable surfaces the atmospheric river left behind. Allow yourself extra time to navigate these challenges and bring the right equipment if you are traveling on firm slopes to prevent a long and uncontrolled fall.

There was a widespread, natural avalanche cycle in most of the Cascades on February 28th, while the area received heavy snow, followed by heavy rain up to at least 6,500ft. The avalanche cycle in the Stevens Pass zone included multiple slides at size D2.5-3, and many in the smaller range. Observers reported avalanches running on unusually low-angle terrain. Check out the avalanche database for details of some of these.