Turnagain Pass Avalanche Forecast

Glide avalanches continue to steal the limelight and for good reason as it only takes a short drive through Turnagain Pass to witness first-hand the quantity of glide avalanches and sheer destruction that these can bring.  It is important to stay well away from existing cracks and limit your exposure time to glide avalanche run out zones.  We’ve been saying it for a while but to get caught up in a glide avalanche will undoubtedly prove fatal.

A very large glide crack has been slowly opening and creeping toward the common snowmachine up-track on Seattle ridge.  If venturing toward the back bowls today, travel fast in order to limit your time spent exposed to this growing glide crack.

Wet loose avalanches:  2-4” inches of wet snow yesterday fell on a supportable crust above about 2,000’.  We can expect up to another 2-4” today.  Stubborn, shallow wet-loose avalanches may be possible in very steep alpine terrain but these shouldn’t prove much of an issue for skiers or snowmachiners today. 

Keep in mind that LOW danger does not mean NO danger.  Aside from glide avalanches, we haven’t seen much wet slab activity yet but it is getting to be that time of year where wet slabs become a concern with shallow overnight freezes and warm daytime temperatures.  

Cornices:  We are still waiting for the Alpine to warm up enough to start seeing a natural cornice fall cycle.  We do know that cornices are close enough to failure that skiers or snowmachiners can influence a failure by travelling on a corniced ridge and the potential for a human-trigger is a very real concern.  Remember these have a tendency to break much further back than one might expect.

Wind slabs:  Winds picked up enough overnight that high in the alpine (where dry snow exists) shallow wind slabs likely exist in leeward terrain.  These are not likely to be deep or large, but could prove tricky in extreme terrain.