Current Conditions
The current conditions around Washington Pass are probably the worst skiing conditions that we've seen all season. That being said, we are still finding good snow, but it is limited to terrain above 6,500'. The big warm-up at the end of February cooked a lot of terrain. Fortunately we picked up a bit of snow on Saturday which has improved the ski quality. Right now the best skiing can be found on North and East facing terrain above 6,500'. Below this elevation the ski conditions can be best described as "dust on crust". The ski quality is reasonable below 6,500' with 5 to 10 cms of new snow over a supportable melt/freeze crust but the snow quality above 6,500' is actually very good. See pictures below.
Avalanche Conditions
The big warm-up this weekend caused a major avalanche cycle. Most of these avalanches were limited to the recent storm snow, 30 to 50 cms deep. These were all running on the February 20th interface which consists of a variety of layers depending on aspect, elevation and exposure to wind. A lot of these avalanches ran on a facet/sun crust combination but some ran on surface hoar or near surface facets. With this large cycle we feel like it has been a bit of a "reset button". While we cannot rule out additional deeper avalanches, this recent storm and warm-up has given the snowpack a good stress test. Snowpack tests in the western portion of our terrain on Monday the 4th show a relatively strong snowpack that should gain strength as the upper, moist snowpack refreezes. Our current concerns are limited to isolated pockets of wind slab at the higher elevations. We will continue to monitor the 2/20/13 interface but we feel like the primary concern will be fresh storm and wind slab for the near future.
Of note are the large, severely overhanging cornices that formed during the recent storm cycle. These are some of the largest cornices we have seen in a very long time. Currently, with the colder temperatures, they are not a major concern but these cornices will eventually drop and we recommend giving them a wide berth until they do.
This page is for informational purposes only and is no substitute for gathering your own observations in the field and checking the avalanche report at www.nwac.us.
Skiing Forecast
The skiing will most likely continue to be good above 6,500 this week. For the skiing to improve below this elevation we will need about 10 cms of additional snow. Looking at the extended forecast we should get that much snow on Wednesday followed by a clearing trend on Thursday and Friday. For the best skiing we'd recommend heading out either Thursday or Friday this week. It looks like temperatures are going to rise again this weekend but the higher terrain around Washington Pass should be unaffected.
According to one of my favorite weather forecasts (yr.no) we should see a significant amount of snow next Monday, but that is a very extended forecast and the Norwegians like to predict large amounts of precip that don't always materialize. I'm a sucker for a forecast that includes a big dump, so I'm going to choose to believe......
Enjoying the high elevation snow on the Lyall Glacier Monday March 4
Riding Stair Step on Monday
Where's Waldo?