Olympics

Despite the date on the calendar the mountains sure look and feel a lot like spring. Consequently, you may find a few pockets of unstable wet snow in the afternoon as the sun thaws the surface. However, the greatest hazard you face may come from variable travel conditions with plenty of exposed obstacles.

This recent weather pattern hasn’t been kind to the Olympics. This last storm brought little more than a dusting to Hurricane Ridge with other locations in the range receiving 1-3” of snow. Over the month of February, we’ve watched the snowpack slowly but steadily shrink. The warm and sunny pattern put the snow surface through prolonged melt-freeze cycles, especially on steep sunny slopes. Shallow spots in the snowpack near ridges and cliffs melted back to bare ground. During this time creeks opened, rocks emerged, and buried trees reappeared. Additionally, this weather pattern created a wide variety of snow surfaces including firm icy slopes, rough frozen snow, pockets of soft powder, and breakable crusts. The greatest hazard you face Wednesday may come from navigating these variable travel conditions and exposed obstacles. 

There is some good news. If it’s going to act like spring, at least you should find some softening snow on steep sunny slopes. As the skies clear Wednesday expect the sun to help weaken the surface allowing for locally softer conditions. However, if you see new rollerballs, the snowpack may have passed the tipping point and you should anticipate small loose wet avalanches. 

Any avalanche issues should be confined to the surface of the snowpack. While you may find isolated weak layers of snow, we don’t think these are widespread and a stout surface crust should limit the potential for deeper avalanches. At the moment, we don’t have any concerns below the surface crust in the snowpack.