[Jim Dockery]

I climbed Pilchuck Sunday morning and wasn't surprised to see that a big chunk of the giant cornice fell on Saturday. What did blow me away was a set of tracks that traversed the bench over there and disappeared in the swath, but I figured they must have made it through before it went or it would have been all over the news. Sure enough when I looked from the summit down on the path of destruction there they were emerging from the other side Mt. Pilchuck, a beacon for natural selection, let some clueless souls off easy Saturday.

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Mt. Pilchuck Cornice Avy

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Mt. Pilchuck Cornice Avy from Summit

[I'm Pysht]

Yikes!

[Hulksmash]

Jim...Having bicycled over Barlow pass yesterday, your photos pretty much cemented my opinion as to why the road is still gated. There's a more than few becon's for natural selection that are really easy to access when the gate is open.

[NikonHiker]

What time did you go up? I was coming down around 7 AM. And I noticed a lot of tracks in some sketchy places too.

[Hulksmash]

Jim....maybe posting those photos on the WTA site too. Looks like there's still some cornice to come down.

[Jim Dockery]

Nikon, I stopped to talk to you for a moment, I was the skier wearing a white hat. Nice to meet you (good photo over in picture of the day). Hulk, the remaining cornices might just melt back, and if they fall shouldn't entrain the slopes below like the big uns Sat. - still dangerous if you are right below em though!

[the Zachster]

Bad choice but their lucky day. They say every picture tells a story...those 2 pics tell it loud and clear. Good reminders to backcountry travellers, especially novices.

[induster]

Wow, has there been a thread on how to spot avalanche possibilites? Thanks for posting

[Scrooge]

induster, it takes much more than a thread here! What you can learn here is when conditions are right for avalanches. Then you STAY AWAY! Until you've taken some of the available avalanche courses and spent some time in the field with people who do have the knowledge and experience. Run a search, here, on avalanches. You'll find out that we've given out the same advice, time after time after time. ....... It's the best we can do.

[Gamuru]

Even on the right-hand side of the saddle were a few iffy spots for me. Large snow boulders below were telling.

[joker]

Yikes. A pal of mine skied up to Blue Lake Col this past weekend, and when he got there he says there were a few guys drinking beers while sitting right on top of the big cornice there. Darwin's roulette. Induster - +! on Scrooge's comments. Buy a book or two on the topic, and take a Level One avalanche course - there should be several good ones available starting early next season. NWAC is an important source of info, including daily avalanche reports; these are done for the season (save for notices of extraordinary hazard - check the archives to see a few recent ones) though you can still get into trouble with both cornice fall, big snow sluffs, as well as slab avalanches.