| Trigger | Natural | Remote Trigger | Unknown |
| Avalanche Type | Unknown | Aspect | West |
| Elevation | 2700ft | Slope Angle | unknown |
| Crown Depth | 12in | Width | unknown |
| Vertical Run | 150ft |
Avalanche: Turnagain
Location: Seattle Ridge
Toured up to Seattle ridge on the normal motorized uptrack to about 3000′. Had pretty good visibility to observe avalanches across the valley on the skiers side and other than 1 recent avalanche further north along Seattle ridge we did not observe any other activity besides some dry loose avalanches in steep terrain.
Avalanche Details
Observed what looked like a fresh wind slab that released naturally. We were pretty far away. My guess is that it released all or most of the new snow (about 12" + some wind loading). Very soft slab that did not run very far. The crown ran along a steep convexity on a wind loaded aspect of Seattle Ridge.
Weather
Clouds cleared out as we were driving up to Turnagain, leaving just a layer of higher clouds above the ridge tops. Light winds. There was about 14" of moist new snow at the parking lot which got drier as we climbed.
Snow surface
30-35cm (12+") of new snow. Moist at the road elevations with a very thin crust on the surface. The new snow dried out at about 2000'. There was some wind transport in the new snow from 2500-3000' along the ridgetop, but not much.
Snowpack
We dug a pit at 2400' that had about 30cm (12") of moist new snow over a fairly strong melt freeze crust. The crust was about 5cm thick and below that the snowpack was wet for about 30cm. This wet layer underneath the crust was pretty weak and we had full propagation in our ECT below the crust where it transitioned to wet snow. We found the basal facets in this pit but they were moist and did not show any signs of instability in our tests.
At 2800' we dug another pit and found drier new snow with some light wind transport. The ~5cm thick melt freeze crusts existed here as well at about 35cm down (14"). Below the melt freeze crust the snowpack was much stronger than in the 2400' pit. With a few additional thin crusts intermixed with strong rounded snow. We found the layer of basal facets on the ground but did not have any test results indicating that they were reactive in this location.
The only avalanche activity we could see today was a soft slab within the new snow that looked like it was likely on a wind loaded convexity on a west aspect further north on Seattle Ridge.
PXL_20221123_235525395[1]
Overall a strong snowpack at upper elevations and the new snow appeared to be bonding well to the melt freeze crust.