New snow and moderate to strong winds have created sensitive wind slabs along leeward ridgelines. Avoid areas that have clues of wind loading such as smooth and dome shaped pillows of snow. Small dry loose snow avalanches could also be present in northerly facing terrain that is protected from the wind. Avoid areas where even a small avalanche could knock you off your feet and into a consequential terrain trap. Look for red flags of instability such as shooting cracks, collapsing or "whumpfs", and recent avalanches. If witnessing these red flags, seek out avalanche resistent terrain less than 30 degrees.
12-18" of new snow throughout the last week with moderate to strong NW winds have created sensitive windslabs along leeward ridgelines. Look for signs of windloading such as a rippled snow surface or dome shaped pillows of hollow sounding snow. Avoid these areas. Natural windslabs were observed yesterday along Wing Ridge in the northern wallowas. See photo and observation here.
As we continue to have cold clear nights, protected north facing aspects will see continued weakening of the surface snow. This could continue the dry loose avalanche problem in terrain 35 degrees or steeper. Where the new storm snow sits atop a firm crust, expect these dry loose avalanches to be more reactive. Utilize small test slopes to check for reactiveness, and avoid terrain where even a small loose avalanche could knock you off your feet into a consequential terrain trap below.
We currently have limited observations of the upper snowpack in the Blues. Please let us know what you are seeing there, but submiting an observation here.
The snowpack in the Blues prior to this storm was strong due to the amount of warm weather and rain happened in the middle of january that was then followed by cold conditions that mostly locked up the snowpack. There remains some uncertainty as to persistent weak layers around crusts in the upper snowpack.
Happening this weekend......The Eastern Oregon Backcountry Festival at Anthony Lakes!
We are pleased to announce the return of the Kip Rand Memorial uphill/downhill race starting at 8 am on February 5th up at the ski area. Participants can register for the race here. After the race, we are offering two clinics starting at 10 am and 1 pm, taught by WAC staff. More information on the events for the weekend can be found here.
February 5th:
February 6th:
Online Auction and Raffle -Similar to last winter we are having an online auction and raffle with some amazing prizes. Thanks to all of the local generosity for putting together some sweet donation items. You can go to the Auction here. All proceeds will help cover the cost of avalanche forecasting this winter. Also, be sure to check out some of our new WAC Apparel in our online store.
Forecast presented by @onxbackcountry. onXbackcountry is a GPS navigation and mapping tool designed with your backcountry objectives in mind, equipped with Avalanche Forecast and Slope Angle layers, Offline maps and more.
