April 12
Week number four started with clearing of sections that had already been cleared earlier. Three of the Cutthroat Ridge avalanche chutes released over the weekend and on Monday (April 10), crews had to clear snow that buried the roadway again, below Cutthroat Ridge chutes #11, 12 and 13, before they could get back up to the Liberty Bell Mountain avalanche zone they had reached last week.
Snow below the Liberty Bell chutes is 40 feet deep or more in places (there are 4 BIG Liberty Bell avalanche chutes). As has been necessary in past years, we contracted with Lloyd Logging in Twisp to bring up their big caterpillars to help us tackle Liberty Bell.
The snow blowers got the cut from Cutthroat Ridge to Liberty Bell widened, shoulder to shoulder. At the same time, the big caterpillars made good progress on the huge piles of snow below Liberty Bell #1 and #2 until late in the afternoon when the avalanche control team pulled them out because of snow in the chutes that started sliding. The avalanche crew shot explosives to bring down the unstable snow, but without much effect. Tuesday through Thursday, the chutes were more stable and crews cleared both Liberty Bell #1 and #2 and continued working on #3 and #4, just below Washington Pass.
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Man, how cool would it be to be avalanche control for the DOT? Hang out on WA Pass all day, do snow science, and shoot big howitzers. Badass.