East Slopes Central

If you enjoyed sunshine in the mountains on Saturday expect slightly different conditions on Sunday. Increasing clouds and winds may prevent even southern slopes from softening much. While avalanche danger is minimal, be prepared for challenging travel conditions on icy surfaces. 

Travel hazards may be the most prominent danger out in the mountains. These could include challenging travel on slick, frozen surfaces and terrain hazards like open creeks and glide cracks. Bring appropriate traction equipment if you're venturing into the mountains on Sunday. Expect a mostly cloudy day on Sunday with the chance of a few snowflakes in areas north of HWY 2. 

The first valley frost in a week was a welcome sight on Saturday morning. Surface crusts are thickening as the previously soggy snowpack drains any remaining water and refreezes. In the Teanaway drainage on Friday, we found widespread surface hoar and near surface facets above the recently frozen surface crust. With a few inches of snow in the forest for Sunday night, these weak surfaces could become buried and preserved. 

Faceted snow over the Solstice Crust was the persistent weak layer involved in multiple skier-triggered avalanches earlier in January, and activity increased as temperatures warmed towards the end of the month. When it began to rain, reports of very large avalanches running on deeply buried weak layers came in from nearly every zone in our forecast area. This period of prolonged warm temperatures led to prolonged instability until cooling temperatures helped reduce the avalanche hazard on February 1st. We are still gathering data from throughout the zone, but the new state of the snowpack looks much stronger than before the rain. 

The avalanche cycle from January 21st through February 1st was impressive and long-lived. We are still looking for old crowns and avalanche debris to understand the full extent of this warm, wet storm. On January 28-30th, many natural and skier-triggered, very large avalanches (D2.5-3) were reported throughout the zone and in neighboring zones. Slides on Big Chiwaukum Mtn and Tumwater Canyon ran to the ground (see photos below). Forecasters at the Holden Mine reported natural wet slab and wet loose avalanches to size D3 on the 27th and 28th. Control at Stevens Pass ski area triggered very large (D3) avalanches that ran on the Solstice Crust 3ft deep. On Sunday, a skier triggered a 2.5ft deep and 200ft wide wet slab that ran on weak layers near the ground at Mission Ridge. One skier was caught, carried, and lost their skis, but luckily reported only a knee injury. If you find evidence of a large or very large avalanche that we haven't logged in our avalanche observations, take a photo and let us know by submitting a public observation!