East Slopes North

We expect that most cornices have fallen, and rock slabs have shed during this prolonged warm-up. However, it's always best to avoid lingering beneath any of these overhead hazards. A more widespread hazard is challenging travel on icy surfaces. 

It certainly feels a lot like Groundhog Day with the weather stuck on repeat. Aside from minor differences in where the cold air pools on the east slopes, Monday will be very similar. With over four days without any significant shedding events, wet avalanches, or cornice falls, we expect most of this activity has run its course. But it's still always good practice to avoid lingering beneath these overhead hazards, especially on warm sunny days.  

The long, clear nights have helped form a robust surface crust, despite overnight temperatures above freezing at upper elevations. Inversions have kept lower elevations east of Washington Pass much colder. Observers in the zone report that northern and shady slopes are staying frozen during the day, while sunny slopes are softening nicely into corn by the afternoon. In the western portion of the zone, the upper snowpack is saturated and refrozen down 1-1.5' from the recent rain. Further east, a 2-4" surface crust exists with dry snow below. You should expect icy travel on firm surfaces, particularly in the morning, so bring appropriate equipment to prevent long sliding falls.

With good visibility, all of the recently reported avalanches and cornice falls occurred on or around January 12th. The widespread wet avalanche cycle included many large avalanches, mostly slabs, some triggered by cornices, as well as some wet loose avalanches. We suspect that many of the slab avalanches occurred on existing storm/wind slab interfaces from the week prior.