Stevens Pass

Variable snow conditions and challenging travel on icy or firm irregular surfaces are a greater concern than avalanches throughout much of the zone. Exercise caution in steep or complex terrain where a slip or small avalanche could result in an uncontrolled and treacherous fall. 

A backcountry skier hunted hard to find a few nice "corn" turns on smooth, planar, south-facing slopes in the zone. They also found treacherous variable crusts and firm snow in  most areas where the sun hadn't softened the snow, and deadly tree bomb chunder piles in treed terrain. Weak, faceted snow and surface hoar was found in any low density snow pockets on shady aspects. You can read their observation HERE. Meanwhile, two Stevens Pass patrollers reported finding a couple soft turns but most southerlies remained hard. 

A strong inversion was present on Wednesday with warmer temperatures up high. It'll be the warmest overnight and then we'll have about a 5500ft freezing level on Thursday. Despite this, increasing wind and cloud cover means we don't expect any soft surfaces. A welcome dusting of snow arrives Thursday night before blue skies come into play again. 

THIS observation from an outing to the Swath/North Chiwaukum on Monday further sums up finding challenging snow surfaces and travel conditions. Consider carrying crampons and an ice axe if you plan on going into the alpine. Anticipate slide for life conditions. There are, however, occasional small pockets of soft snow. We've had several observation with reports of surface hoar and weak upper snowpack layers forming in recent days. 

If you get out in the mountains, let us know what you see by submitting an observation HERE or via the Avy App.