Turnagain Pass

We don’t have a lot of information about the high elevation deep slab because so few people have been traveling in the mountains over the last couple weeks.  Yesterday on Seattle ridge we dug in a deeper area at 2900 feet and found 5 feet of mostly very strong snow on top of the old Nov/Dec persistent weak layers.  (click on link for photos and pit profile)  We could not get an extended column test to fail, but 2 compression tests revealed sudden collapse Q1 failures at the early December drizzle crust (CT24, CT21 Q1).  The good news is that our recent wet storm has made some very strong snow – it’s difficult to cut through it with a sharp saw.  I think it will be unlikely for a person to trigger the deep weak layers where the snowpack is in fact deep.  It may be possible to trigger from shallow points where it could propagate to much deeper snow.  

I’m still going to mention wet avalanches even though we now have a surface crust over everything.  You have to dig through the crust to find the wet snow.  

If someone were to trigger an avalanche below 3,000 feet, it will have some characteristics of a wet slab.  Think about heavy, slow moving, bulldozer-like avalanches.  

We dug a shallow pit just off the slope from the standard snowmachine up-track to Seattle ridge yesterday.  Underneath the 4 inch think supportable crust is unbelievable weak, moist snow.  Skis glide over the crust with no penetration, but trying to walk on it will sometimes punch a boot through the crust, which then drops through to the ground.  It’s a very abnormal setup, and I’m honestly not sure how to measure its stability.  

As more of the snowpack freezes up with the colder temperatures, strength will increase quickly and the possibility of triggering more avalanches in the wet snow will decrease dramatically.