[gb]

The recent accidents could be the tip of the iceberg. Watch NWAC and be conservative. The amount of new snow is exceptional and doesn't look to be stopping any time soon. Expect tough trail breaking.

[joker]

Yes, we were amazed at how deep we could plunge our ski poles just off to the edge of the slopes of the Mt Baker ski area yesterday. And last week up in the Snoqualmie area it was already getting quite deep as well, with tougher trailbreaking than I'd experienced in some time. Thanks for the heads up. I hope folks get it that the consequences of a slide would be quite significant right now.

[cartman]

[DIYSteve]

Thanks for the PSA, gb. Alpy was whacky deep and soft yesterday.

[cartman]

Yes, but that's a straw man argument. I was making no allusion to summertime travelers. It seems in the case of backcountry winter travelers that there is a much higher percentage of people who think they know more than they do than those who are truly educated. I encounter this repeatedly year after year among both non-skiing and skiing climbers and snowshoers. Bottom line: Be conservative. When the conditions are anything but low or have been stable for an extended period, there can be unpredictable zones in the snowpack and avalanches can happen. Certainly true after all the dumping the past few weeks; yet people, again, see new powder and get into trouble.

[Pyrites]

Would you expect more of those avalanches that take out timber and extend lower, i.e., are spots with longer return times?

[cartman]

[joker]

I could offer a few competing hypotheses for waves of accidents such as seen this past weekend. They aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. One is that we just have more people getting out into the mountains now - it appears that it's both due to increased population and to a higher percent of the local population doing things like slowshoeing and backcountry skiing. That alone should increase the number of avy accidents seen. And it's not as if we wouldn't have had a fair chance of seeing one or more incidents occur on such a weekend even 15 years ago, so the population increase may be adequate to explain what we've just seen. Another is that a higher percent of people are going "bigger faster further" (or whatever the quote along those lines was from one of the folks involved in the Tunnel Creek tragedy, as quoted in the long feature article in the NYT). My own anecdotal experience would suggest this is true, both as seen in online trip reports as well as in facts such as that whenever I'm feeling OK enough about the snowpack to cross all the avy paths leading up to the Snow Lake Divide, the big steep (i.e. high consequence) runs on the north face of Chair are tracked out like Ruby and Garnet bowls at Blackcomb a few days after the last big snow. Fifteen years ago we might not see many tracks at all back on the lake side by the time we were willing to get back there - now we're always late to the circus (frankly we don't check that circus out often though, but from trip reports it's clear that my few recent experiences are typical). One risk mitigation tactic is to avoid long steep runs that hit terrain traps (e.g. the snow that piles up in fat fans on the edge of Snow Lake at the base of Chair's north face) when there is reasonable chance of skier triggered slides, particularly if the sliding layer is more than a few inches deep. My impression is that there are many people who don't use this tactic in nearly as conservative a way as seemed more the norm to me 15 or so years ago. And another is that there are more people getting out who, whether they have Avy 1 training or not, seem to be looking to the NWAC forecast to predict more than is possible. The repeated critiques I see on TAY after eventful weekends such as this past one about whether NWAC "got it right" strike me as clear evidence of this. Particularly when people gripe that something slid big on a "considerable" day - as if "considerable" hazard is a green light for skiing big lines. Yikes! These guys don't have a crystal ball - conditions sometimes change in ways they don't predict (e.g. a convergence zone dump that's bigger than expected can significantly increase risk above their forecast in local areas), and even "moderate" hazard means that skier triggered slides are quite possible, so terrain choice and on-site hazard evaluation are much more important than having read the avy forecast. I've seen more than one disconcerting threat on WA Hikers & Climbers group on FB where it seemed clear that there's a significant contingent of people who use the NWAC forecast as a green/red light for hikes/snowshoes that cross avy paths (e.g. Lake 22 and Annette Lake are common examples) in ways that made it clear that some of the folks don't get the dynamics involved (e.g. the paths that cross the trail to Annette start way up in the alpine, so the "below treeline" hazard is not all one needs to pay attention to). I suspect all three hypotheses are in play, and that the population increase has also increased the sway of the "scarcity heuristic." If you don't rush right up to ski the Slot or the north face of Chair right after a snow dump, it's going to be well-skied by your predecessors. I'm glad that I'm easily amused by relatively low angle turns (I guess I'm what some condescendingly refer to as a "meadow skipper" though I do like steep and tricky lines in the right conditions). I'm even OK just doing "figure 11's" down along and next to my skin track on particularly touchy days - it beats hiking Si again in mostly rain.

[cartman]

[gb]

There should have been an avalanche cycle in the South Cascades yesterday afternoon until about midnight. There will be a more significant cycle South Cascades Thursday night and through much of Friday. The North Cascades will have some involvement but it really hits the fan north in the period beginning Sunday Afternoon. Forecasts (current) indicate there may be a Pineapple express over Southern BC and Northern Washington that should last as long as Tuesday or so. A glance at Baker's telemetry shows that since February 17th or so the snow total at the lodge has gone from 106" to 185", with more yet to come. Should be the biggest cycle in the past few years. At higher elevations and in wind loaded areas, it wouldn't be surprising for some 12' crowns.

[BigBrunyon]

Any good known places to view the 'lanches from a safe distance?

[puzzlr]

Weather and road conditions allowing, I'm going to try to photograph stuff coming down Garfield from Stegosaurus Butte. But the slopes on Garfield are so steep they don't hang onto snow long so it's hard to get the timing right here and I've not been successful so far. Usually it's obvious on the drive up the road that it's not going to work. Except for the danger of hiking up the trail, Index will probably put on a show from Lake Serene.

[DIYSteve]

[treeswarper]

And nobody posted about a heli skier guide getting buried in an avalanche early this week? He was dug out by the other skiers--they had beacons and knew how to use them, and helicoptered off to get checked out. This was in the Methow area. Any other info on this? It was in the Wenatchee World facebook page.

[gb]

Let the fun begin. It is just now tranisitioning to rain at apparently most ski areas.