East Slopes Central

Cooling temperatures and surface freezes have reduced the avalanche danger. If you find wet snow that's unsupportive to skis or boots, consider that you may be dealing with more dangerous conditions. Be prepared for slick and firm travel conditions.

Temperatures have begun to cool, and surface crusts are getting thicker. 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.

On Friday, observers in the Teanaway drainage and at Mission Ridge reported supportive surface crusts. We anticipate this trend to continue on Saturday. The one uncertainty is that increasing cloud cover on Friday night could keep surfaces from freezing as solidly. You can check the freeze by standing on the snow without your travel equipment (skis, board, snowshoes, or machine). If you sink into wet or moist snow above the top of your boots, there's a chance that you could trigger a wet avalanche. 

On Friday, an NWAC forecaster in the Teanaway drainage near Long's Pass found widespread surface hoar and near surface facets above the recently frozen surface crust. An observer near Mission Ridge found over 6" of stout, frozen surface crust above a weak, wet lower snowpack.

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 2.5ft deep and 200ft wide wet slab was triggered and ran on weak layers near the ground at Mission Ridge. One skier was caught and carried, lost their skis, but luckily reported only a knee injury. 

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. The overall weak structure of our snowpack has led to the current prolonged period of instability. 

If you get out, let us know what you see by submitting a public observation!