Avalanches Kill 3 at Stevens Pass, 1 at Alpental

Thanks fwb.... just heard from Ben... sounds like they are all good.

Was up at Stevens both yesterday and today. Hiking out the ridge yesterday towards highland bowl, there were strongly wind affected pockets with shooting cracks just out of the boot pack, but aside from easily propagated top inches of surface sluff, bulk of the snow in trees felt good on SE aspect. Caught up with snoholic and TBill towards the end of today, and they reported seeing a crown all the way across the top of Highland Bowl... second hand, I heard one person was caught but self extracted. The 'High' avy rating seems pretty much right on for open terrain at the moment.

Will be interesting to see how the WX this week evolves... the rain event for Tuesday will trigger pretty much anything that hasn't gone under 6k ft, I think, and everything above is going to get such a massive load placed on it (UW WRF-GFS 12km run is putting another 32" of dense snow on top of stuff above 7k-ish) that it'll likely make everything that didn't get rained on go. The 24hrs from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday afternoon is looking like a good time to be anywhere but avy terrain. On the up side, precip with falling freezing levels Wednesday afternoon/night will hopefully yield a consolidated snowpack with the new stuff well bonded and right side up... here's hoping, anyhow.

Thoughts and prayers with the families of those who lost loved ones today.

So sad to hear that 4 of our commuity left us yesterday. From images and what I've heard of them from those I know, they touched many lives and were wonderful people. RIP and my heart goes out to family and friends.

Condolences to the families and friends of those who were lost yesterday.

I didn't know the victims, but I've been staggered by the scope of this tragedy. I've been trying to process it mentally. I reviewed my notes about avalanche accidents in the Northwest through 2011:

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

Losing more than one member of the skiing and snowboarding community in single day is a horrible shock. It has only happened twice before. In 1999, one snowboarder and one skier were lost in the huge Rumble Gully avalanche just outside the Mt Baker ski area. In 2007, three snowboarders were buried at their emergency bivouac in Union Creek near Crystal Mountain. Yesterday, we lost three at Stevens Pass in a single avalanche and another at Alpental in a separate accident. It was deadliest day for avalanches involving skiers and snowboarders in the history of Washington state.

There have been even worse days in history, but they involved climbing parties. Fatal accidents involving multiple skiers are extremely rare in this state. I think that's why this event seems so overwhelming.

Like Lowell, I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around the magnitude of grief created this weekend. To the friends and family members of those involved, I wish you support, strength, and love in the weeks and months to come. To those that died, R.I.P- you will be missed but never forgotten. 

Condolences to all family and Friends of the victims. What a sad and painfull day in the Cascades.  I have been skiing in the Stevens sidecountry the last few days and ran into the group of visiting skiers and their local friends and guides on a few occasions.  They were all smiles out there enjoying the incredible gift we received.  Sunday Morning, we were on top of Cowboy ridge at about 11 am discussing if we should drop into the Glory bowls, or not.  Logistics and fate sent us the opposite way.  Ended up skinning up to lake Josephine and on to the Fleur de lis shot where we had a birds eye view of Highland bowl.  It also went big, The crown started near the first clearing you would get to as you traverse into the area from Stevens and ran all the way around to where the convex rollovers are. Basically the entire bowl area. Guessing 300-400+ meter wide crown. Crown seemed to be about  24" deep or so, and about 100'  below the ridgeline but was hard to tell from the distance we we at. Did not see any damage to the trees below so I'm guessing it stop fairly quickly in the basin below the bowl. Only had a phone camera, so I could not get any picts at the distance we were from it.  After all the years of skiing that bowl I had never imagined that it could go like that.  Hard to digest all the events happened yesterday.

Zack