East Slopes South

Low snow will limit the potential for avalanches, and conditions are generally safe. Be cautious if you find wet snow on sunny slopes or recently formed wind-drifts high in the alpine. Your greatest hazard will be navigating thin snow cover with plenty of shallowly buried obstacles.

A beautiful sunny day is in store for Friday with calm winds and rising temperatures. Snow surfaces are cold and dry, and should heat up on steep slopes in direct sun. There isn't much recent snow out in the East South Zone to cause concern for avalanches. Regardless, pay attention if snow starts to shed from trees, rocks, and cliffs, or if you see rollerballs and pinwheels. These are signals you may be able trigger loose wet sluffs on similar slopes. If you venture high into the alpine, especially closer to the Cascade Crest, look slope by slope to see if the terrain in front of you could hold a shallow wind slab. Simple clues like textured surfaces and sharp drifts point towards possibly wind-loaded slopes. Be leery of these areas in consequential terrain.

NWAC forecasters on Manastash Ridge Thursday and near Rimrock Lake (Hwy 12) Tuesday found only a dusting of snow at mid and lower elevations. These meager totals did very little to improve travel conditions. The prolonged dry and warm weather of January and February really took a toll on the snowpack. At lower elevations, much of the snow melted back to bare ground making access challenging in some parts of the zone. Similarly, shallow spots in the snowpack on more southerly slopes and near ridges shrunk exposing rocks, trees, and dirt. Fortunately, the snowpack increases dramatically as you ascend in elevation on more shaded terrain. It’s in these mid and upper elevations shaded areas that you might find weak layers within the snowpack. Numerous crusts and sugary facets have been observed at nearby Crystal Mt and White Pass. However, at the moment, they don’t have much of a slab above them and we don’t expect any avalanches on older snow layers.