Observation: Public

Observation Details

Triggered Avalanches

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

We headed up Mount Snoqualmie today and enjoyed unusual solitude and great skiing conditions - perhaps everyone was across the valley at Vertfest? Our original plan was to head up to the summit to ski the north slope, but strong winds above treeline caused us to adjust our plans to stay on more pleasant, sheltered aspects.

We skied to the standard Thunder Creek/Slot exit. Out of the trees, the south facing slopes near the exit were fairly wind-affected, while the exit couloir was quite wind loaded, with winds coming across the south slopes from the SE. We dropped a small chunk of cornice (~5ft x 3 ft x 3 ft) into the exit couloir, which sent some sluff running ~100 vertical feet down the slope, but did not trigger and slab avalanches. We skied down into the Thunder Creek basin, then spent the rest of the day skiing the fans below the Snot and Slot, as well as poking up a short distance into both couloirs. Skiing conditions were excellent, and in more sheltered slopes in the couloirs, we observed frequent yet small shooting cracks while making kick turns, as well as isolated very small skier triggered slabs.

The largest avalanche we observed was a D1 soft slab at approx. 5,400 feet in the wider part of the bottom of the Slot, which I triggered while skiing over a steep convex roll. The crown was ~30 feet wide and 3-6 inches deep, and ran ~200 vertical feet down the couloir. All activity we witnessed was isolated to the top ~3-6 inches, the uppermost layer in the snowpack.