White Pass East
Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 28th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 27th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 26th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 25th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 24th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 24th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 23rd, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 22nd, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 21st, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 20th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 19th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 18th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 17th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 16th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 15th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 14th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 13th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 12th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 11th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 10th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 9th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs, Storm Slabs.
Published: Mar 8th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 7th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 6th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 6th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 6th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Storm Slabs.
Published: Mar 5th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 4th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 3rd, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 2nd, 2025from the Big Y to summit creek, good riding!
<p>Down by the highway there was about 10 cm of fresh snow but by 1500m that had doubled to 20 cm. The wind was only blowing above 1700m and we enjoyed easy travel and good riding at all elevations. We felt comfortable traveling on steep slopes but we’re still on the look out for buried windslab that may be hard to see with this fresh snow. There was a bit more sun today than forecasted and by the afternoon we were seeing a lot of pinwheels and loose wet avalanches out of steep south facing terrain but nothing more than a size 1.5.
By late after noon temperatures were a few degrees above zero back at the highway.
</p>
Yukon Field Team,
Thursday 6th April, 2023 3:20PM
THANK YOU!
<p>Since you found this MIN post - we know you are making use of the Mountain Information Network! Check out our video thank posted on social media: on instagram we are @avcanyukon and find us on facebook at Avalanche Canada Yukon.
Big shout our to all the mountain people who have been contributing MIN posts thru the season: your observations are so valuable to ground truthing and supporting the Avalanche Canada forecast program in Haines Pass and White Pass. We can't thank you enough! Keep it up.
...and the weather today...meh. It clouded over in the afternoon, the ceiling dropped, the south wind picked up enough to drift on the highway and a bit of snow is starting to come in. A bit of fresh snow has softened the crust at lower elevations.</p>
Yukon Field Team,
Tuesday 4th April, 2023 5:40PM
Still soft snow out there.
<p>We spent the day in a sheltered side valley to the east of White Pass in order to avoid south winds coming through the main valley and to seek out softer snow in sheltered terrain. We were able to find some preserved powder in a north facing alpine bowl and the riding was excellent. We had no signs of instability and saw no new avalanches but we did back off a pocket of old wind slab that over hung a terrain trap in a steep, rocky area where we were uptracking. We dug at 1600m below the toe of a glacier and found 220cm of snow and had no results in snowpack tests. </p>
Yukon Field Team,
Thursday 30th March, 2023 5:10PM
Nice day for a tour
<p>Calm and clear day so we saw a whole lot of terrain on the East side of White Pass. Any avalanche debris we saw looked to be from the weekend or earlier. There is evidence of a previous avalanche cycle where steep south slopes in the alpine warmed previously, but temps stayed below zero today. We skinned up to a col at the back of the Big Y looking south into Big Blue. We found good fun skiing on the northeast aspect, consistent and fast on soft snow wind pressed snow that is very carvable between 1900 m and 1600 m. In this NE alpine bowl at 1800 m we dug a test profile - there was 200 cm average snowpack and we had no significant results.</p>
Yukon Field Team,
Tuesday 28th March, 2023 5:20PM
Ride One Side
<p>A fresh coating of new snow sits over a variety of surfaces throughout the Big Y today. While there was only 5cm of fresh in the valley bottom, there was up to 30cm of soft snow on the glacier making for smooth sledding. Light winds have had minimal effect on the new snow so far but we did find one large, convex slope that had a windslab developing. After having a look and a helmets off discussion, we decided to ride a similar slope right beside it that was more supported and had no terrain traps in the runout. We saw a few loose dry slides out of steep rocky terrain but no new slab avalanches. </p>
Yukon Field Team,
Friday 24th March, 2023 8:30AM
Great Ski Conditions
James Minifie,
Thursday 23rd March, 2023 9:45PM
White on white
<p>Barely froze overnight, seems like a greenhouse effect today. -1 C at 0900 at base camp at 900 m, where snow is 200 cm deep snow, cakey on top. Settling rapidly. 40cm 4F on P+ old snow. Weather was warm, overcast, flat light, very light South.
Sledded across on the East side, not as much snow as the West: 150 cm total snow at 1100 m around TL in Big Y where is was warm + 3 C by 1300hr. Probed 40 cm from March 15-17 storm upsized down, 1F to 4F on old firm hardpack. New snow is warm and sticky. No new avalanches observed in the Big Y. Sledding was good, snow was heavy, but totally carve able. the skis and boards stayed strapped on the rack today! Driving home it was warm +4 C around Log Cabin and + 5 C at Tushi by mid afternoon. </p>
jeni.rudisill,
Sunday 19th March, 2023 4:40PM
Upside down delight.
<p>Well. We got a lot of snow and then it got warm and windy and the it went a little upside down. That is, it turned a little stiff on top and remained soft below. This made for challenging travel conditions on sleds and lots of digging. Once we got off the sleds and started walking in sheltered terrain on west and north facing aspects things got a little nicer. The trail breaking was real but the skiing was actually decent. We stayed on supported slopes below 35 degrees away from terrain traps in order to give the new storm slab some time to bond to the firm surfaces and facets below it. That being said, we did not see any new avalanches which was somewhat surprising. I pulled multiple hand shears on the way up and found the storm slab to be 30-50cm thick and giving resistant planar results on old wind hammered/facetted surfaces. </p>
jamesminifie,
Friday 17th March, 2023 6:50PM
A sea of sastrugi
<p>Wind has made it down into the bottoms of gulleys and valleys and it has redistributed all available snow to small pockets of rideable snow.
Where the snow is soft there has been a lot of recreational traffic.
Looking forward to some snow in the forecast!
</p>
Yukon Field Team,
Tuesday 14th March, 2023 5:10PM
Survey ride!
<p>Today we did a large survey ride around the Whitepass with clear blue skies and sharp visibility. We saw evidence of a windslab avalanche cycle that produced many avalanches on mainly south aspects from the recent north wind. They were mostly 48 or more hours old.
We traveled in the alpine a little and backed off of slopes that felt really "pillowed" or deep with recent wind affected snow on all aspects. Riding in valley bottoms was still pretty good, and very sheltered trees also had good snow.
In wind exposed areas, hard surfaces are what you should expect!
</p>
Yukon Field Team,
Wednesday 8th March, 2023 3:40PM
big y valley
<p>Forecast was calling for -15 and turned out to be -7. Visibility got better in the afternoon. Snow was nice and light towards bottom and little heavy up top. Did not see any signs of Avi conditions </p>
Donno Mis,
Tuesday 21st February, 2023 5:50PM
Great travel condtions and reactive windslabs
Eirik Sharp,
Monday 20th February, 2023 8:00AM
The highway was windy, the Big Y was sheltered and sunny
<p>Today we battled through the valley bottom ground blizzard and were rewarded with a bit of sunshine higher up (above 1300m). As soon as we entered the big Y and werein a valley perpendicular to the direction of the wind, it was quite calm and the snow was sheltered from wind affect. We avoided slopes with signs of wind loading (pillows, convexities, cornices) and gave large slopes a wide berth.
We probed 170 cm on a northeast slope at 1750m. We probed around throughout the day and found pretty consistently less than 200cm of snow. Below 1500m we could consistently find the crust that formed late January down about 50 cm.
The whole day we could hear the wind howling and see it moving snow at ridge top.
</p>
Yukon Field Team,
Thursday 16th February, 2023 5:00PM
Powder is back!
<p>25-30cm of fresh snow fell in White Pass on Sunday night vastly improving riding conditions. The new snow did come with some wind so riding was excellent in sheltered areas and wind pressed but passable in more exposed areas. For the most part, we couldn't even feel the old crust under the new powder snow. We did observe evidence of a Na wind slab avalanche cycle that produced a series of small avalanche on NE facing slopes during the storm. We dug on a northeast facing wind loaded alpine slope in the alpine in search of the early January surface hoar layer. We did find it buried about 100cm but the surface hoar crystals were very decomposed and the layer did not produce any results on snowpack tests. All in all, the riding was quite good and it was nice to see things shaping up again in White Pass after a pretty crusty week. </p>
Yukon Field Team,
Tuesday 7th February, 2023 5:00PM
Avalanche watching
<p>Broken skies and good visibility gave us a chance to sled over to the Big Y on the East side of White Pass. Great powder riding in this zone, but even with that bottomless feeling there are still rocks at the bottom. Coverage is improving. We explored on skis up to 1700 m elevation and found snow depth of 185 cm. In our profile on a SW aspect we had moderate to easy results on new snow down 20 cm and notable sudden planar compression test results down 40 cm on a layer of facets that formed during the dry spell in December. The rest of the mid-pack was generally pencil hard and the bottom half of the snowpack is composed of loose facets. We observed a natural avalanche cycle today when the south winds picked up at ridgetop as we watched several size 1 avalanches run out of steep rocky terrain, these were narrow slides that ran 500 m long. </p>
Yukon Field Team,
Wednesday 18th January, 2023 5:40PM
"Dude do you copy? You stuck?"
<p>After numerous stuck sleds and a lost iphone on Fantail (which has a deep, 2 m+ snowpack in many places and great sledding, fyi), we skied trees on the NE ridge above Fantail and found very good snow and pleasant skinning in the trees. Light north winds at times may have transported some snow at ridge tops but clouds kept us down low. A pit dug to ground at 1280m on an ENE slope exhibited a 90cm layer of facets above ground. The skiing was generally great. Creeks are still open (we found them) and there are still rocks to hit (found those too). Another meter of snow will go a long way to bury christmas trees and alders and improve access to some of the more outlying zones. Holler at us if you find the phone ¯\_(ツ)_/¯</p>
Yukon Field Team,
Thursday 12th January, 2023 8:10PM
You probably didn't miss anything
<p>It was a tricky day for travel, particularly at road level where a layer of freezing rain/ice fog formed an instant sheet of ice on all surfaces (including goggles). We did make it up into Big Y. There has yet to be any significant wind effect barring the highest ridge lines and snow quality is still excellent as the wind that was forecasted today did not materialize in any meaningful way. We observed a large size 2.5 avalanche that propagated along the south facing ridge line in the Big Y valley in the last 48-72 hours. Snow pack is still thin (< 1 m) above 1600 meters and there are still rocks and stumps to be weary of when covering terrain.</p>
Yukon Field Team,
Wednesday 11th January, 2023 3:40PM
Big Y - rocky approach
<p>We sledded to the Big Y to see how conditions were on the East side of the pass. The sled approach is passable, there is just over a meter of snow at lower elevations and lots of rocks to dodge in exposed areas so we took it easy picking our way on sleds through the moraine on the way up to the glacier. Surface snow is 10cm powder, a thin disguise for the rocks lurking below the surface. We dug a profile around 1700m at the base of the glacier and found a 145cm deep snowpack and moderate sudden planar results (ECTM and CTM) on a facet layer sandwiched between hard wind slabs buried 50 cm down. Skiing was good in the alpine above the clouds today.</p>
Yukon Field Team,
Thursday 29th December, 2022 4:10PM