Avalanches Kill 3 at Stevens Pass, 1 at Alpental

Details are just starting to trickle in.

usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/19/10...ng-in-wash-avalanche

Details are just starting to trickle in.

Looks like they have accounted for the other 8, what a sad day! Heard and seen lots of emergency personal driving past Skykomish.

www.king5.com/news/People-reported-missi...anche-139645233.html

Also, a snowboarder has died in an avalanche today at Alpental.

today.seattletimes.com/2012/02/two-peopl...che-at-stevens-pass/

Horrible. This may be the most deadly day of avalanches involving skiers and boarders in the history of Washington state.

alpenglow.org/ski-history/notes/book/logan-1996.html
alpenglow.org/ski-history/notes/web/www-avalanche-org.html

Wow, that's a lot of bad news for one day. Anybody have more info on the Alpy incident? Patrol got some big stuff to go this morning.

I camped at Skyline lake last night with our Boy Scout Troop.  Lots of avalanche bombing started around 6 or so this morning.  We had 12-18" of really light powder come down overnight, and some wind drifts, on top of what came down yesterday.

We headed down around noon.  I estimate I saw 30 skiers and a couple handfuls of snowshoers coming up as we went down.    Epic skiing AND epic danger out there today.  I overheard at least one group talking about decision making, and pre-setting limits on terrain and risk on the way up. 

The ski down the south face was sublime even with a 40 lb pack.  I hope everybody continues to make good decisions through the day and we don't hear of more casualties. We were passed by 6-8 emergency vehicles as we drove down the mountain.

This is terrible news. We were touring, along with many others, yesterday at Yodelin and things appeared relatively stable for the amount of new snow. It was only a couple of obvious and predictable steep rollovers that we were able to get moving. However a lot more was coming down while we were there and that can change things quick.