Stevens Pass

While conditions are generally safe, there are a few considerations: Be prepared for slick and firm travel conditions. If you travel to upper elevations, watch for isolated and shallow drifts of snow. The snow could get warm and moist on steep, southerly slopes.

There are just enough inputs to keep both wind slab and loose wet avalanches in the back of your mind. However, there isn't enough snow available for either of these avalanche problems to be prominent enough to raise the avalanche danger.

Stevens Pass picked up light snow accumulations totaling ~3" since Saturday. Some moist snow or light rain fell at low elevations. You could see another 1-2 inches of snow by the end of Monday. East winds will continue to be strong enough to transport snow through Sunday night, but most slopes don't hold enough for any true wind slab hazard. If you find fresh drifts approaching 6" deep and bigger in area than a dinner table, be prepared to identify and avoid features of concern on slopes steeper than 35 degrees. Temperatures will warm on Monday, and clouds could thin enough to moisten the recent snow on steep southerly slopes. It's tough to say how much sun will come through the clouds, but you might see some rollerballs or very small wet avalanches.

 Crusts in the upper snowpack are getting very hard and now are 3-6" thick. On Sunday, NWAC forecasters at 5,300ft found frozen surface crusts pencil to knife hard. The dusting of new snow was already starting to facet. Non-avalanche hazards may dominate your risk management decisions. These could include challenging travel on slick, frozen surfaces and terrain hazards like open creeks and glide cracks.

During a prolonged rain event in the last week of January, water transformed the snowpack. On Thursday, forecasters visited a profile study site near Skyline Lake before the snowpack had frozen. You can compare that weak, unfrozen snowpack with more recent observations. Information from upper elevations is still limited, and we assume less of last week's precipitation fell as rain fell there. If you plan on traveling above 6,000ft, be ready to make your own assessment of the snowpack. 

Following days of rain, observers reported numerous very large avalanches that ran naturally and with control work on January 28th through the 30th. Some of these slid on old, weak layers, gouged to the ground, and took out trees. See photos below.

If you make it out, please share what you found with an observation.