Mayuary – Yup it’s been a stormy month. We’ve seen an unprecedented stormy start to summer in the Cascades and Mt Rainier. Guides are reporting winter climbing conditions on Baker, Rainier, and in the North Cascades. A month ago, the average snowpack depth at Paradise, Mt Rainier was 84%, now it is over 125%. This is very unusual, typically in April and May we start to see the snowpack depth decrease. This past week teams were unable to reach the summit of Rainier due to avalanche danger. On Baker we had teams up high on the mountain but they turned around due to adverse weather conditions.
Yesterday (May 18th) a vicious quick moving storm impacted the Cascades and Rainier creating blizzard conditions- gale force winds with gusts as high as 80mph-90mph for a 9hr period at Camp Muir with just over 1” of snow at Paradise.
These conditions have created an unusual avalanche danger in the mountains for this time of year. Weather is currently the main driver for avalanche conditions. If you are interested in learning more the avalanche phenomenon we recommend taking an AIARE 1 course.
Next week the weather pattern looks to be shifting into a more traditional spring weather trend. We are hopeful the avalanche danger will decrease on the Cascade Volcanoes and allow teams to make summit attempts.
