East Slopes Central

Expect highly variable conditions as you change aspects and gain elevation. Sun will melt snow surfaces and could make small wet avalanches possible during the daytime. Conditions may change quickly once above 7,000ft, so be prepared to make your own assessment on the higher peaks of the region. 

A widespread avalanche cycle occurred throughout much of the Cascades on the 28th. You'll find evidence of recent large and very large avalanches, often involving wet snow in many areas. The storm dropped copious amount of snow, and the rain line climbed up to around 7,000ft. A solid freeze overnight into Saturday morning may create challenging travel with slick frozen surfaces or breakable crusts in the shade. You could find nice spring-like corn riding on southerly aspects if you time it right. There are also plenty of large piles of avalanche debris to navigate. Consequently, make sure you prepare for difficult travel on various uninspiring surfaces. Once the surface crust breaks down and melts, you could trigger small wet avalanches on very steep slopes. You'll know its time to move away from steep slopes if the crust is melted away, and you sink in below your knee in wet snow.

You may find deep, dry storm snow if you travel to alpines zones at the highest elevations. An observer at Holden on Friday noted some crowns on higher north facing slopes. Be sure to investigate how well the new storm snow is bonded to underlying surfaces and look for signs of instability. If you see shooting cracks or feel the snowpack collapse under your weight, you should stick to lower angle slopes. Before the storm last week, there were weaker, faceted layers that we were tracking. These layers are likely not a concern anymore below the rain line of ~7,000ft, but may still be an issue above that. As such, be sure to check for: A layer of facets/surface hoar on shaded aspects or facets over a suncrust from February 26th, and an eroded crust layer from Valentines Day on shaded slopes not too far beneath it. These layers should be between 2-4ft deep in most of the higher terrain (>7,000ft) of the zone near the crest. 

Avalanches are unlikely in areas such as Mission Ridge and Blewett Pass with a very shallow snowpack. Here, it rained to ridgetop, and a cooling trend has since locked things up. For more information on how our current snowpack compares to seasonal averages, check out the monthly Climatological Snow Depth Report.