Hoar layer developing in the N Cascades.

It has been a sad past few days.  Good post Ron.<br>I'm still rather shaken after being up at Alpental earlier on Weds. morning on the "Dawn Patrol" outing; especially as we started hearing "whoomps" on a relatively shallow (less than 25 degree) slope at the bottom of Edelweiss Bowl; which is where we turned-back.<br><br>

<br><br>Lots of places out there.  C'mon, give it up -- where can you suggest that folks go to ski and ride that has a greater degree of safety in high avy danger?<br>

<br><br>In search of safer terrain last weekend we (Daniel Tomko, Mark Tomko and myself) scoped out this fun tour on "low-angle" tree and gladed terrain near Salmon La Sac (NW of Cle Elum). <br><br> www.turns-all-year.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB...splay;num=1105337110

Unfortunately, I would not recommend this tour at this time, until at least another 2 feet of snow is received in that area to adequately cover the rocks.  But once it has more coverage, I think it would be fantastic and relatively safe tour in high avy conditions.

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but be careful out there, the current snowpack is very scary!
--Chris

The Utah avalanche forecasts for the last few days are super interesting with astounding pictures of 'Huge' avalanches, 6-8 ft crowns. Bruce Tremper wrote a nice one yesterday. Check out<br><br> www.avalanche.org/~uac

It hasn't been talked about a lot because it has snuck up on us (and forecasts earlier in the week were for great weather this weekend) but it should start to storm again Saturday night with a warming trend through Sunday into Pineapple express land by Monday. Things Sunday could get very sketchy. Be safe.

Ron J: thanks for the post.  i agree.<br><br>i don't know if anyone is interested, but a couple of us are planning to go somewhere around paradise valley on Rainier this Sunday to dig some pits and practice beacon searches (deep burials).  if conditions permit, we'll ski a bit on low angle terrain.  send me email if interested.<br><br>we'll be meeting at 7am on Sunday morning at the South Renton Park and Ride (just off Grady way) to arrange carpools. or meet at paradise parking lot around 9am.<br><br>-kam

It seems like we have a very bad combination of conditions right now: high avalanche danger, low snowpack in the forest, and snow-covered access roads. I don't get much enjoyment out of long trips on logging roads and through clear cuts, so all of this is definitely limiting the places I can think of that I would want to ski. In a typical winter, when the avalanche danger is high I would consider low angled forested areas around Snoqualmie (Nordic Pass, lower Silver Peak bowl, lower Commonwealth basin, Silver Creek-Easton) and Stevens (upper Nason Creek forest, Lake Valhalla). All offer low angle skiing through beautiful forest. I have the impression, though, that with the snowpack we've got (or don't got) most of these destinations would not provide for a very satisfying trip right now, at least based on what I have come to expect. I did try out a new place today - Waptus River trail ( TR here ) - and it was very nice, but it was sort of backcountry XC skiing, which keeps me happy but might not do so for a lot of TAY readers. We really just need some more snow, the denser the better.

PE advocates: Well it's here, and it sucks. Current forecasts are for 9 DAYS of this crap. Whatever consolidation it might be encouraging, it won't matter when everything is down to bare ground again, and if anything there will probably just be another round of depth hoar just because of all the moisture trying to escape from any remaining dense wet low layers once covered. I would rather have a potentially dangerous BC but at least have enough snow in the areas and for XC adventures so that there is some kind of winter left in our hills. And the worst part is that rain falling now is probably shortening even the spring seasons in most of the high places; there won't be enough snow to corn up proper and it will just be rotten once temps get into corning range. Arg.

I'll take the Pineapple Express, thank you very much.

<br><br>

Hey Sky (and others), be careful what you wish for!@#$%! <br><br>Medium-range models are starting to show hints of a developing Pineapple Express on days 6-7

<br><br>Bump. <br><br>Meadows lost ~15"s of snow last night, which is 40% of the snowpack since the base was 37"s before.<br><br>Thanks Sky