March 5, 2004, Stevens Pass bc

Since there is a distinct lack of posts from this past weekend, I thought I would share my observations.

I went for a tour around skyline ridge on Friday morning.  There had been close to a foot of new snow in the preceeding day, with high winds from the west.  I found major instabilities in the upper snowpack, with the new snow sliding easily on the buried surface hoar from 2 wks ago.  I was concerned about skiing in the open bowls so I stuck to some favorite tree runs.  Even in the trees however, sliding was prevalent.  I came across some large naturals on short roll-overs in the trees.

Combine these conditions with the high avy activity of 2 weeks ago and there was major avy risk out there this wknd.  I was content cruising through the trees in the new, heavy snow.

On Saturday I decided to ride the lifts for only the 3rd time this season.  In the Stevens Pass area "backcountry" (i dont know the name of the area I was hking in, but you head up the southern cross chair from the backside and hike up to the bowl on your right as you come up the valley), there was a large slab release in an open bowl, probably close to 300' across, along the new snow boundary.

The NWAC warning seemed spot on for the conditions I observed over the last few days.  Hopefully some rain and high temps will stabilize things in time for another dose of winter.