Hatcher Pass
Avalanche danger
Highlights
The avalanche danger is LOW at all elevations.
Excellent stability, few recent avalanches, and sparse untracked powder are on the menu today with increasing clouds in the forecast.
Shallowly buried rocks remain the biggest hazard with our 1 to 2.5 foot deep snowpack.
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UPCOMING EVENTS:
Tuesday, December 3rd – 6:15-8:00 PM @ Backcountry Bike & Ski
Join us for the first forecaster chat of the season aka the “State of the Snowpack” with HPAC forecasters to go over the new forecast platform, submitting public observations, a review of our season’s history and what to expect moving forward.
Avalanche Discussion
Many people have been out recreating at Hatcher Pass over the past several days while laying down tracks in steep and rocky terrain. Few human triggered avalanches have been reported or observed. However, there is still an outlying chance of finding unstable snow in isolated pockets of steep wind-loaded terrain where it may be possible to trigger a small wind slab or persistent slab. Fortunately, the duration and intensity of the 11/28 forecasted winds were short-lived, and new winds slabs were hard to find on Friday. That being said, we have observed a few small avalanches this week that entrained snow in narrow gullies with shallow rocky terrain. It remains possible to human trigger a small dry loose avalanche (sluff) on all aspects 40 degrees and steeper. The consequences of triggering even a small sluff may be compounded by terrain hazards like gullies, which include numerous rock hazards. Conditions have improved significantly since the 10" of new snow on 11/25-26. We still recommend choosing slopes to ski and ride where blueberries would grow until rock hazards are fully buried.
Even though the snowpack is generally stable right now, it is important to travel one at a time, watch your partners from safe spots outside of runout zones, and have an escape route planned if you trigger an avalanche.
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RECENT AVALANCHES
Forecasters observed a few small dry loose sluffs and a few small slab avalanches that occurred Thursday as a result of short duration wind. No new slab avalanches have been observed since Thursday. See pictures in the media.