2 Inbounds Avalanches Reported at Washington Ski Resorts

On Sunday, January 28, two inbounds avalanches were triggered at Washington state ski resorts. One at Mission Ridge and the other at Stevens Pass.

The avalanche at Mission Ridge happened on the Nertz run, which is accessed by the Wenatchee Express chair lift, also known as Chair 2. It appears it was human-triggered as three guests were in the area. None of them were buried. Out of an abundance of caution, a search was conducted that included the use of an avalanche dog and Recco devices.

At Stevens Pass, it was a similar story. The avalanche occurred on Solstice Crust and was human-triggered. Thankfully, no injuries were reported. Because of the unstable snow activity, the resort had to reduce its operational footprint to the Brooks, Skyline, Hogsback, Daisy, and Kehr’s chairs. A blog post by the resort stated that additional terrain will likely not be regained until there is a cooling trend. Mission Ridge made a similar announcement that they anticipated a delayed opening on Chairs 2 and 3, with a target of opening chairs 1, 4, and all surface lifts.

The unstable snow conditions were brought on by warming temperatures and rain in the area. Most likely the slides were wet slabs as the Northwest Avalanche Center (NWAC) had issued warnings for all aspects and elevations, saying that avalanches would be likely, and the size would be large (D2) to very large (D3).

Dangers in the area still persistent as evident in NWAC’s bottom line reporting:

“Very large, destructive wet avalanches are still likely with the sustained warm temperatures and additional light rain. These avalanches are tricky and extremely hard to predict. The best option is to choose low angle forested terrain, well away from the runouts of large, overhead avalanche paths.”