Chinook Pass- 2009

UPDATE: No Cayuse this weekend.


Pass status: Cayuse Pass is closed for the season.
UPDATE: Almost two feet of new snow has fallen on Cayuse Pass since Monday, May 4. New snow and expected warmer temperatures this weekend could mean greater risk of avalanche danger on the pass. Crews will postpone opening the pass until we are confident the road is safe from avalanche danger. Our goal is to open the pass as soon as possible, in time for Memorial Day Weekend.

Lots of avalanche activity this week with the new snow. I expect there will be plenty more over the weekend as the FL is expected to rise considerably. Most of our avalanches from 5/6 involved the new snow, though once they got moving they did entrain into the underlying wet snow. A few slabs were triggered, but nothing like two weeks ago.

$

Last week (May 11-14) brought more snow and some progress along the road. We put a bit of snow on the road Thursday while dealing with the new snow hazard. It should be interesting to see what the weekend did, and if we will trigger anything deeper this week.

Why don't we have the progress photo's on the DOT site like in the past years?

DOT web site under seasonal closures: www.wsdot.wa.gov/traffic/passes/chinook Also states they should know by this afternoon (Wednesday) for Memorial Day weekend. Apparently there are more photos: flickr.com/photos/wsdot Does anyone know how much it snowed last night?

DOT web site under seasonal closures: www.wsdot.wa.gov/traffic/passes/chinook Also states they should know by this afternoon (Wednesday) for Memorial Day weekend. Apparently there are more photos: flickr.com/photos/wsdot Does anyone know how much it snowed last night?

Here is the link to the 2009 photo's. The link on the DOT site take you to the 2008 pics.

www.flickr.com/photos/wsdot/sets/72157618459108227/

According to the DOT, Chinook has received about 5' of snow in May so far. Not too likely they will have it open by this weekend I'd guess.