Hyak Avalanched Today!!

Does anyone know what the slope angle is there where the slide occured, also any convexity or concavity in that terrain area??

I don't know the slope angle, but it isn't very steep relative to what one might consider steep ski terrain.  Maybe 25 degrees?  It would be a blue run at Sun Valley.

The run starts out at a constant steepness, rolls over steeper right where the slide broke off, flattens for a short time, then rolls over again to about the same steepness as at the top of the run.  It is mildly concave and more so in the roll over.

All in all Hyak is a fun area, lot of little bumps and hits and countour, right steepness to point it and steer on a powder day.  For the rest of the year the Summit should avy control it, groom in some sort of reasonable up track, and allow skin-up access with a nordic ticket or season pass -- a free heel, human powered ski area ...

Here some video with commentary posted on vholdr.com:

www.vholdr.com/node/8971

All in all Hyak is a fun area, lot of little bumps and hits and countour, right steepness to point it and steer on a powder day.  For the rest of the year the Summit should avy control it, groom in some sort of reasonable up track, and allow skin-up access with a nordic ticket or season pass -- a free heel, human powered ski area ...

I'll be excited if they simply choose to keep the parking lot plowed and allow backcountry skiers in. Avy control is a lot of liability they don't need. Ski compaction is probably good for the houses/facilities at the bottom.

I stayed the night up there right near the lower Hyak lodge. Saw the slide on my way to the convoy. The road to Central was closed and the rain had undercut the soil from the edges of a bunch of the pavement around Hyak. The WS DOT Flkr stream shows a lot of it. As for plans for updating the lifts at Hyak - the recently approved ski area master plan is here: www.summitatsnoqualmie.com/info/winter/mdp.asp

After the pass opened I was able to get up to Hyak and hiked up the hill for a close up view of the damage. The debris is pretty bad and there is no way they will be able to get the area going this year for downhill, even on the small chair. This picture I snapped you can see what is left is a large hole, like someone just scooped out a bit of the mtn with a large spoon. The FS road below the slide is still ok and there are even a few ski tracks.

www.flickr.com/photos/hyak/3182798675/si...et-72157606217542480

All the other photo's I snapped today are posted at my site....

Wow, those are amazing pictures Jack. Just for a different POV here is one from Kendall area this morning;