Olympics

The Hurricane Ridge snowpack has adjusted well to spring-like conditions. More mild temperatures and a touch of rain or high-elevation snow won't change that. Deeper snowpack areas in other parts of the range may be adjusting more slowly to the transition, so temper your exposure if you see signs of recent large wet avalanche activity and expect that it could continue on Friday.

To say it's been a mild week at Hurricane Ridge is an understatement. The temperature rose above freezing early March 21st and only dropped below freezing last night, before temperatures rebounded to 42F by Thursday afternoon. The resulting snowpack decreased by 30% from 80 to 56" over that timeframe.

NWAC Observers and Park rangers traveled to around 6000 ft on the west side of Mt Angeles on Thursday. Most aspects are loosing their winter layering rapidly. On southerly aspects, even the crusts are no longer apparent. On northerly aspects, a crust up to about 8" thick overlies a relatively homogeneous snowpack to the ground. On these aspects, you could still find a the early February tests (which didn't yield notable test results) around 51" down in a 67" snow pit. The snowpack in this area has handled a fairly rapid transition to spring quite gracefully. There had been some minor wet loose activity over the last week, but they didn't observe signs of glide cracks forming. You can read their full report here.

We expect the snowpack to be able to handle more mild temperatures, a potential poor overnight refreeze at lower and possibly middle elevations, and a bit of rain or snow. You may find heavy, wet, manky snow that you can push down a slope. If you encounter this type of condition, use small test slopes to determine whether it will be a problem. 

Prevailing weather patterns have favored the eastern, southern, and western parts of the range with snowfall throughout the winter. Water percolating through these deeper snowpacks may take longer to impact crusts or weak layers. Take note of any recent avalanche activity and if you find evidence of large wet avalanches, expect that they could still be on the agenda in that area on Friday. An observation from the Mt Olympics area shows very large D2.5-D3 avalanches that entrained down to the ground on some very steep sun-exposed aspects. These are the types of deeper snowpack areas where you will want to limit your exposure to a potential large or very large avalanche. We suspect that with cooling weather, these avalanches will be less likely, but there remains a possibility.

2023-2024 Forecast Schedule

NWAC will issue an avalanche forecast every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and every holiday mid-week day the Hurricane Ridge Road is open from December to early April.  We will issue Avalanche Watches or Warnings when conditions warrant.  We will not update the non-holiday midweek discussion.  Our mountain weather forecasts will continue to cover the Olympics and are issued twice a day through the end of April.  If you have questions or feedback, please contact us at [email protected] and [email protected]. 

If you're out in the snow, share your observations with us and your local backcountry community.