Stevens Pass

A rapid doubling of the snowpack accompanied by wind around Stevens Pass has created drifts that will take some time to heal. Use your pole or quick hand shears to examine the snow for firm, punchy layering - a reminder to steer around wind-loaded slopes nearby. Shallowly buried obstacles remain plentiful, so travel with caution.

The snowpack at Stevens Pass elevation has nearly doubled in the past 48 hours, drastically changing the landscape from a few days ago. This means that we're past the depth threshold for avalanche activity in much of the Stevens Pass terrain. Observers on Sunday found that the 12" of snow had widespread wind affects with firm and reactive drifts in near treeline terrain. Additional heavy snow arrived with convergence bands late in the day.

Recent observations identified weak snow from the long mid-November dry spell, but in most areas near the pass those layers appears to be healing. However, you're most likely to encounter a lingering problem in isolated shady areas. Pay attention for whumphing collapses or sugary snow layers where a problem remains. These locations are most likely to be in more easterly areas of the zone. It's easy to check for this layer with hand pits. If you find sugary, weak snow and a thick slab of snow on top, then avoid slopes steep enough to avalanche nearby.  Since Nov 23 we've seen a variety of snow conditions where the weakness was found in shady and sheltered areas, accompanied by whumphs, whereas other observers reported healing grains and no obvious signs of instability or avalanches. 

As a brief season history up to now, a couple feet of low density snow sat on the ground for a long period of high pressure Nov 8-21. North facing slopes became weak and faceted in the shade. Strong winds and days of sunshine created firm surfaces in many places in the alpine, and slopes exposed to direct sun. Warm temperatures and rain around Thanksgiving may have healed some of the weak layers. Several inches of snow that fell 11/25 in addition to the 12-18" of storm total snow through early Monday all sit on the recent crust (or potential weaker snow previously described).

Despite this last storm,  it's still early season, and the snowpack is shallow. Expect to find around 2-4 ft or snow at mid elevations. Lots of early season hazards exist such as shallowly buried trees, rocks, and other obstacles. In terms of our snowpack, we're still gathering information about what's out there on the ground, so this forecast comes with a fair amount of uncertainty with limited information as a starting point.