Turnagain Pass

Seattle Ridge – Repeat Offender:  Around 5pm on Sunday, April 24th, there was a very large natural glide avalanche that released on the Repeat Offender slide path. The avalanche propagated large portions of wet slab on the descent and sent significant amounts of debris over the common motorized up-track. Four riders were descending the up-track when the avalanche occurred behind them. Two were able to outrun the debris and two were caught. One rider was mostly buried with an arm and back of helmet exposed. The other was not buried. The group was able to quickly assist the buried rider and all involved are OK.

Around 2.5 hours later (between 7-8pm) another smaller glide avalanche and wet slab released to the looker’s right of the original avalanche that sent debris over more of the up-track.

*We are currently compiling a report with additional details. Thank you to those that have passed along their information, photos and videos.

View from the toe of the avalanche the day after, 4.25.22.

Closer up view of the second release that covered more of the up-track. 4.25.22.

Looking down from the up-track. Photo by Hunter McConnel 4.25.22.

Dangerous springtime avalanches are the main concern now and will be for the next week and even several weeks. Since the warm storm last Friday we have seen many large wet slab and glide avalanches release. A few clouds overnight kept some heat in and last night was the warmest night yet in the high elevations. This will only accelerate the melting of surface crusts and destabilizing of the snowpack today.

How we manage these springtime wet and glide avalanches is to simply not be in their way. They are predominantly occurring in the afternoon/evenings and on east, south and westerly aspects. Thinner snowpacks, with rocks/etc poking through, are also more suspect to avalanche. If you see recent avalanches on similar slopes/aspects, you can bet that more are on the way. Seattle Ridge is a great example of this for anyone that has been to Turnagain Pass in the last week.

It is good to note that even though wet avalanches and glide avalanches are technically different – they are occurring in sync right now. The one exception is that glide avalanches can release at anytime of day – even in the morning when the snowpack is more frozen. Watching for glide cracks and avoiding being under them is prudent in the morning as well as later in the day when things heat up.

Two different wet slab avalanches with debris running together on Seattle Ridge – across from the parking lot. Unknown exact time of release, but in the past few days. Photo taken 4.25.22.

Cornices:  With the very warm temperatures, these beasts are slowly oozing over and could start falling off at anytime. They also may be so close to failure it would not take much for people along ridgelines to get them to break. They also could trigger an avalanche below, threatening anyone that could be in the path. Just one more issue right now with the springtime thaw.

In the higher terrain on shaded slopes, watch for lingering slabs formed by last Friday’s 1-2′ of snow. These could be wind slabs or storm slabs and may still be able to be triggered by folks seeking out the drier snow. Watch for the telltale signs of visibly wind loaded areas, hollow feeling snow, cracking in the snow, and whumpfing. There were reports of whumpfing in the Pastoral area two days ago.