Sobering news out of the Pacific Northwest this weekend. Mt. Hood released an eight foot deep slab avalanche and Rainier’s Ingraham Glacier experienced its own massive slide around 4:45 AM on Saturday. 10 climbers were buried and one is still missing.
Having intended to climb Hood on Saturday night.. this kind of news never gets less scary. I like to think that the folks I climb with are experienced, knowledgeable, and pretty damn wonderful and trustworthy, but none of us can withstand an avalanche. Even a one foot deep slab can gather more than enough speed to kill a climber. One of my rock climbing partners took a tumble down Hood last year after tripping over his crampon and ended up in a halo for months and months.
Definitely keeping all the climbers on Rainier in my thoughts. This season’s weather has been sketchy at best, and fatal at the worst.
The Northwest Weather and Avalanche Center has issued a warning of significant avalanche danger above 7-8000 feet.
A current storm system moving through the Northwest should deposit an additional 4 to 6 inches or more of snow at elevations above 7 to 8000 feet along with moderate southwest wind transport helping to further load steeper lee terrain. More showery weather anticipated late Sunday should be followed by decreasing showers early to mid Monday, with slowly clearing skies, decreasing clouds and brief warming likely later Monday and early Tuesday before another moderate storm system affects the area and brings another surge of precipitation and winds late Tuesday and Wednesday along with lowering freezing levels. As a result of both current and expected weather and avalanche conditions, travelers venturing into higher elevation terrain in the Cascades and Olympics should be conservative in their decision making, cautious in their route finding, and factor avalanche danger into their goals and route selection for the upcoming week…as very few goals or routes are worth injury or death.
Well, I’d say none. Be careful out there!
UPDATE: Photo from Hood this past weekend. Pretty glad we cancelled our plans at the last minute. Check out the huge slide in the background.
