ski_photomatt

This does seem to the case. Freezing levels are supposed to go up tonight with most of the precip too Let's hope for some of those post frontal showers, they'll be the hookup. This weekend looks nice, but I'm really looking forward to next week another storm supposed to roll though, this time with 'low and lowering freezing levels' - NWAC

I interpreted 'shooting cracks' to means cracks shooting away when you stepped too. Usually glide cracks imply stability but you still need to be careful. They tend to have areas nearby that aren't super sound like crevasses and you could fall into the hole they create , be standing on top of a huge slab when it decides to let loose, , or get buried from above when one goes

Thanks for the TR tomcat! Very informative. It always seemed to me going in Eldorado would be easier than Thunder ridge as most of the early elevation gain would be on trail, but it certainly looks like this is not the case. Just how bad is the Borealis? Ice screws and maybe a tool to get around some of these crevasses?

I just bought a pair of Tua Nitrogens from REI marked down to $219 from 500 or so retail. I bet that's about wholesale or less They had somewhat of a decent selection left but I think at this price they will go fast. The lady at the cash register said they had just been knocked down. ProSki has a sale on all their skis and probably bindings too.

Dru, getting back to something you said, I'm assuming the cracks really existed and trying to explain them, not trying to show that the post was BS. I've been thinking about this over the weekend and discussing it with some other skiers. It's led me to rethink through the mechanisms of how cracks form in the snowpack and what holds different types of slabs together so even if a suitable answer isn't reached, I feel like I've at least learned something The consenus was that wet saturated slush can't crack like this, at least not on its own above a crust like a dry, hard slab can. Something else was happening. Perhaps it was a glide crack or it was a very deep and severe settlement far below any recent snow. This seems possible given the amount of rain and warm temps. Finally, it seems at least conceivable that given the strong winds last week something funky with temperature, wind and a localized terrain feature created a snowpack different than a foot of slush. The sensor at alpental was above freezing at both the parking lot and 4300 ft every hour from Sunday through Thursday, but at times it was near 34 or 35. I dunno, a couple of degrees colder and wind driven rain creates a hard slab before the rain can filter down. Who knows. Not me, that's certain. I was out skiing Sunday. It was crap, but I did take the time to dig 2-3 feet down. The snow pack at 5000ft was completely saturated for the first two feet, with all the recent snow compressed to a foot or so above a crust. There was another, less distinct crust another foot down, below it looked a little less saturated, certainly still wet, but I honestly didn't take the time to seriously look. I did see a fair amount of glide cracks, even was surprised to have to ski over a few small ones in steeper places. The snowpack frankly looked very sad, although it was snowing hard at 4pm up high, 1-2" had accumulated in a half hour or so.

Dru, no need to apologize for getting technical. I'm trying to arrive at a technical answer. The cracks were noticed yesterday (Thursday). I purposefully dug up the telemetry data to hopefully show that the snow pack is most likely slush down quite far. It's has been raining since Sunday afternoon there, with 5" (127mm) of rain recorded by the sensor as of Thursday morning. For comparison, the average total January precipitation at SeaTac is 5.13" The snow pack depth had decreased an alarming 26" (66cm) since Sunday. This is not rain falling onto a hard slab and I think we can assume (even without Minx's firsthand confirmation) that the rain has percolated fairly far down, at least to the bottom of the snow from last weekend. What I can't figure out is how can a snowpack like this produce "shooting cracks"? Is there something I'm missing here? Can saturated, wet slab propagate cracks, even above a hard crust? Anyone who has skied in the spring has certainly kicked off slush and watched it slide, but I can't remember seeing the wet slab propagate a crack and then slide. Perhaps I'll pay more attention this spring. The area grows more by entraining snow at the sides then by cracking like a hard slab. It's been very windy this week, the winds have been predominantly southerly and likely hitting the open area below Guye's south rib. Does this matter?

I was just looking at telemetry data from Alpental. The snowdepth peaked Sunday afternoon at 95" before changing over to rain. By yesterday morning they had recorded nearly 5" of rain since Sunday and the snowdepth decreased to 69" (it looks like it was 54" or so early last week before it started snowing). AlpinistAndrew, were slabs cracking? How deep were they? What were they sliding on? We were out on Skyline Ridge above Stevens Pass last Saturday and found the new snow was sitting on a hard crust, our rutchblock failed just above the crust. All the new snow could have consolidated into a slab and be sliding on this crust. The part that gets me though, is I can't quite imagine a cohesive slab, or one cohesive enough to propogate cracks. I'm picturing something more like deep corn similar to afternoon snowpack on warm, spring days. Can slush propogate cracks?

Tomcat, if you write a TR, post it as I'm sure others would also like to see it. I'm planning to do this exact traverse this summer.

I'm trying to imagine exactly how there could be shooting cracks in the snow. You are referring to a slab like upper snow pack that is settling suddenly when your body weight stresses it? Granted there was a ton of snow last weekend, but hasn't it been raining buckets up there since? How is there a cohesive enough slab overlaying a weakness able propogate cracks at 3500ft? Unless, the upper snowpack was dense, wet slab, the rain hadn't made it down to lower density snow deposited last week and the upper slab was failing on this lower density snow? I'm trying to further my own snowpack/avi understanding.

I get most of my weather info from the UW Atmospheric Sciences Department. They have a very nice page set up with links to just about any weather info you'd want for the northwest. go to http://www.atmos.washington.edu and click on weather and climate at the bottom. Then something like weather observations and forecasts, it's self explanatory. The page that comes up has most of the links, but one is hidden. Click on Weather Loops on the left hand side to go to another page with the satellite and radar loops, as well as model output.

I thought this was interesting so I'll post it. This storm is a little unusual in that it isn't a low pressure developing over the eastern pacific and moving inland. Instead, a low moved down from Alaska and is sitting over British Columbia somewhere. A high is parked in the Pacific and the two are in fortunate position relative to each other and forming a "conveyer" belt of moisture, sending it straight into Washington and Oregon. The satellite picture is total water vapor, green = wet.

How much snow do you want? Stevens has 6" since 8am, Baker 9" in the last 24 hrs. Snoqualmie had a little trouble getting it below freezing earlier today but is kicking it in now with 3" at the pass. At 4000ft they have the same as Stevens I'm sure. 6" in 8hrs at Stevens is 18" in 24 hrs or a 100% certified dump by tomorrow night.

I've got other views about that. SLC has a new light rail system called TRAX that works very well. A model system really. It came online just before the Winter Games. Just take a bus from the airport to Park City, and stay there. I haven't spent any time in Salt Lake in a few years. I do remember looking at the bus schedule and thinking it took longer to get places than it should have. Glad to hear they've built a nice system since then. Efficient public transit makes city living far more enjoyable.

Second what E-rock said. Unless you have another compelling reason to go to Park Shitty, skip it for one of the Cottonwood canyons. Hard not to ski Alta if you ski and don't board (no snowboards allowed at Alta). The city runs public transit all over and up both canyons to the ski areas. Once you get close to the base of the canyons, hitching is possible. I've done it successfully and have seen many others have success too. Salt Lake is sprawl and the public transit is far from efficient, better to stay somewhere close to the bottom of the canyons to make the trip to the ski areas a little easier. Then take a shuttle the longer distance between the hotel and airport.

Glad to hear you made it out safely Gaston. We saw your snow-shoes cached at the col leading down towards the route on our way to the Slot Couloir. Your (down) steps were useful climbing out of the basin back up to ridge later in the day Congrats on the climb.

minx - as a kid, my brother skied an entire week at Steamboat with his arm in a sling after dislocating his shoulder the first day he was about middle school age. I'll certainly be riding the lifts at Alpental Thursday. Will anyone else be up there?

I have brought this up in conversation with people in the past: Why is it that people get all up in arms when some climbers die on rainier and hood and just climbing in general when 13 people die skiing in colorado and there doesn't seem to be a big uproar. It seems climbing gets all this attention as an extremely dangerous sport; now I know there are probably more skiers and there are certain ratios of participants to deaths, but remember the climbing season is all year round. Maybe it does get a lot of attention, and I just don't know it. I wonder how many of those 13 deaths in Colorado are avalanche victims skiing in the backcountry and how many are at resorts? Regardless, you do have a good point: climbing is sensationalized in the media and certainly draws more attention when things go wrong. Perhaps it is because climbing is less mainstream. I'd bet a fairly large percentage of the population in mountainous regions has been skiing at least once, knows someone who skis, works with a skier, ect., certainly much more than with climbing. Additionally, most of the skiers never venture outside ski area boundaries and thus never need to be "rescued". How many skiers at lift areas, especially larger resorts where folks take their vacations, are even aware it's possible to ski without lifts? How many non-skiers do? Skiing is generally thought of as a safe activity, reinforced by personal experience to many people. Climbing rescues are somewhat commonplace and make the news, people have less first hand experience to interpret these stories and it gets tagged as "dangerous" and "reckless". I guess another reason might be the perception of avalanches and avalanche accidents. They seem to be protrayed as acts of God, natural occurances outside our control. Climbing accidents seem to be portrayed as human error.

Did you stop 1000ft from the top of the White Salmon Gl or from the top of Shuksan? I'm wondering how Hell's Highway looked. The White Salmon looks like one of the better day tours in the area, or an overnight with a bivy high on the mountain and time for exploration.

Well, I've been wanting to ski this one for a while but haven't for whatever reason (other plans, weather/snowpack uncooperative). Weather and snow Saturday were perfect. We got a little lost and cliffed out ascending from Alpental but eventually made it to the notch giving access to the basin north of Snoqualmie. Booted up the couloir, relaxed on top and skied down. Snow conditions ranged from knee to thigh deep postholing in still unconsolidated powder to relatively hard snow (wind slab that loose snow had sluffed off?) requiring a decent kick to make steps. The basin below the north side of Snoqualmie holds excellent north facing yo-yo skiing well after a storm too bad it's such a bitch to get to Descent to Alpental was thick sludge in the evening sun.

cluck - with glacier climbs I like sleeping in and letting other parties put in a boot pack It looks like showers may be lingering in OR tomorrow early morning. That's right on the edge, weather models are good, but not that good. With a confident Sunday forecast I'd say wait, but it's a toss up right now. Good luck.

NOAA = national oceanic and atmospheric administration NWAC = northwest weather and avalanche center NOAA is a huge national organization which oversees the National Weather Service, many reseach labs, the Climate Prediction Center, as well as the weather satellites (I think) and many, many other organizations weather, climate and ocean related. They are huge. NWAC is a local organization that gets funding from NOAA among others. I think (am not certain though) that NWAC's office is in Sand Point as a part of NOAA's larger complex, it appears NOAA hosts their webpage for them. All of the weather forecasters have access to the same info - this includes the media as well as National Weather Service and NWAC - the same model output, the same satellite data, the same observations. A human looks it all over and issues a forecast they think is correct. Sometimes they disagree. The weather is supposed to clear out tonight and will be relatively nice tomorrow into Sunday morning/afternoon, at least here in Washington. It may crap out Sunday later in the day. I'd imagine the weather down at Hood will be similar. If you are going to take a slacker approach and leave sometime near sunrise and climb during the day you may want to go tomorrow. If you are climbing at night, it's probably a toss up.

I never trust anything other than the National Weather Service or NWAC for local weather, and when travelling I usually seek out the local NWS office for their forecasts. The media forecasts, especially national ones are far too inaccurate. I think the forecast for sunday is giving the forecasters problems. The last few days have had precipitation in the forecast for Sunday, last night they took it out, and today it's back in. I'd be inclined to think Sunday will see a little precip, just gut feeling from watching these things. Local forecasting uses the MM5, a regional weather model fairly heavily, it is run twice daily and the afternoon run is finished about 1pm each day. Usually waiting until the afternoon NWS update gives the best weekend forecast. Depending on how into it you get, the NWS produces a "forecast discussion" which is usually helpful. This morning's discussion included statements about model disagreement for Sunday and forecasting issues. It's linked off the main NWS page http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/Seattle under public forecasts then AFD for the seattle office (AFD = Area Forecast Discussion). If you are a real weather geek, the atmospheric sciences department at UW has a page with actual model output http://www.atmos.washington.edu then go to Weather and Climate info or something like that.

My bad, you're absolutely right klenke. I should have investivated a little more before typing away. My explanation of an offshore high is so wrong it's mind boggling, I shudder to think I could have let it slip The low off the coast is the same one now raining in Southern California for what it's worth.

From my limited understanding, wind shear depends strongly on the local weather and topography. The reason you experienced such a sharp transition Sunday was due to the fact that a strong high pressure was moving on shore as the storm was moving east (this caused the strong easterly (from east) winds in the Cascades Sunday). Wind was blowing over the mountains, taking the path of least resistance and I'd imagine moving around Hood like a river flows around a huge boulder sticking out of the water. Was the transition from strong wind to calm about the elevation or a little above that of the local peaks (excepting Hood of course)? I'd imagine this scenario is fairly common when a strong high follows a strong low or vice versa. Another common example is the inversions at the passes (Snoqualmie especially) during clear winter spells where easterly winds bring cold air from Eastern Washington westward setting up the low valley fog. Climbing up a few hundred feet usually sends you above the fog and wind. It's highly topographic dependent. The MM5 is a regional mesoscale weather model run at UW twice daily and issues forecast soundings (like the weather balloon sounding iain posted). The main MM5 page is http://www.atmos.washington.edu/mm5rt. You want the 12km GFS run or go directly to http://www.atmos.washington.edu/mm5rt/gfsinit.html and click on Soundings.