Hike to an Avalanche

Washington State has been experiencing an air inversion, which means foggy weather for most of the state but here in the Cascade Mountains we have blue sky and bright sun. Well... I should qualify that we have 2 hours of direct full sun in the village but we still gaze upon beautiful sun lit mountains most of the day.

The rainy weather of two weeks ago brought down many avalanches in the mountains, one of which is quite large and only about 2 miles from the village, flowing down Holden Creek Canyon and crossing the Hart Lake trail. Yesterday seemed like the perfect day for a hike and so about 30 of us decided to walk out to see the avalanche.

It was still very cold out so we bundled up and headed out. Because the first snow of this winter was very cold and fluffy, the most bottom layer of snow was the most unstable (the science of snow is fascinating). This unstable snow cause each avalanche to cut right down to bare dirt in many places. Frozen dirt, rocks, trees and roots came down the mountain with the snow.
If you click on the picture above and it will enlarge and you can better see the scope of the slide. The small specs up the canyon are actually brave young people who decided to make their way to the beginning of the slide.

We had a great time. The avalanche was huge and will require much trail repair work this summer. Above you can see our friends Wanda (a brave Floridian) and Carole (a brave Californian) conquering the Cascade Mountains avalanche.