Glide Cracks
- Alpine
- Treeline
- Below treeline
- Likelihood
- Possible
- Size
- 2–3
Glide cracks located above commonly skied slopes and skin tracks are still releasing as avalanches at mid and upper elevations. Try to limit time spent under these brown cracks or avoid them altogether.
Several recent glide avalanches were seen on the common skin track up Lipps and at least 3 glide avalanches were observed in the Lynx Creek zone yesterday. A glide crack is opening on the skin track up Magnum's northwest ridge. Unfortunately, there are glide cracks located above a lot of commonly skied slopes. These can release at any time causing large, dangerous avalanches that can run to the bottom of valleys. The safest option is to avoid traveling under glide cracks. If you choose to, travel one at a time, and move quickly past them. It will be helpful to look at photos from previous forecasts and observations to find where these cracks are located, however, new ones are occurring all the time so keep your head up.
There is also a small chance of triggering an avalanche on a buried layer of weak snow on steep wind load slopes. Running into this problem is unlikely but keep it in mind if you find yourself in steep terrain skiing firmer snow.
(11/29/2024)
Three glide avalanches on the Lipps common uptrack.
Photo: John Sykes