Quick report
We toured up Seattle Ridge and were pleasantly surprised to find 4" snow in the parking lot. We made it up to about 3000', but it was really hard to tell how much new snow there was at upper elevations because there has been so much wind. Surface conditions were a mix of 4-6" snow in sheltered slopes with drifts 8-12" deep at mid elevations, and a mix of rimed crusts and some soft snow up high. The clouds lifted just enough to get a look into Zero Bowl and Warmup Bowl at the end of the day and we saw debris from multiple large cornice falls and one avalanche that looked to have failed mid-storm. It looked like it only involved this past week's snow based on the size of the debris pile. Our main concern as we traveled was avoiding freshly wind-loaded slopes.
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Rain Elevation
- 800
- Recent Snowfall
- 15
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
Clouds were in and out all day. There was a good window of visibility in the middle of the day, but the clouds quickly came back in and hovered in the back bowls for most of the afternoon. Winds were calm while we were out.
Avalanche
We didn't see any really fresh avalanches, but we did see an older debris pile that was probably 2 days old or so, and a lot of debris from cornice failures.