Avalanches

some of you may have heard in the news that snoqualmie pass was closed down for about a week because of heavy snow fall and avalanches [read: 15 feet of snow in one week]. for our friends east of kansas, yes...there are avalanches in america. for our friends west of kansas, you know this already. [note: to the folks east of kansas, find I-90 on a map. follow west through the rockies, then through the cascades. at the pinnicale of the cascades in washington you'll find snoqualmie pass.] snoqualmie is a major pass and has major avalanche activities and is about thirty minutes from our humble studio apartment.

this is I-90, a few weeks after being cleared of snow and avalanches.

still I-90. wsdot built a barricade to retain snow from freak
avalanches. the snow would still pour over the top in periods
of heavy snowfall.

wsdot even installed these little huts along the way. the huts
house a howitzer style cannon to launch explosions up the
mountain to trigger avalanches. how freaking cool is that!
I wish mr. johnstone, my high counselor, would have told me
about that job. i would have tried a lot harder in school if i
knew i'd be launching explosives up a mountain!

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on another note: with the heavy snowfall the cascade range has gotten, we thought a trip to mount rainier [which is in second place for record snowfall. both mount rainier and mount baker are located in our glorious cascade range].

since the road was closed up to paradise [due to avalanches], the furthest we could get into mt rainier national park was the longmire area. longmire hasn't seen this much snow in twenty years.

dogtrot at national park inn at longmire.


the nps tries to keep the walkways plowed since the national
park inn still sees visitors; even in the harshest of winters.


even the historic gas station was packed in pretty
well.

out building at longmire.

a section of the wonderland trail loops through the longmire
area. without snow on the ground this sign would be four feet
tall.

leaving longmire, by way of the wonderland, we snowshoed along
the nisqually river for three miles where we found a nice place
for a lunch break. while dining peacefully on subs, the snow pack
on the mountain face across the river from us cracked and gave way.
thunderous chunks of snow broke the silence as the ice careened
down slope; andrea and i's first visual on an avalanche.


although it's hard to see, this is the chute that we saw a
half dozen avalanches come tumbling down.

before you go tramping around in the cascades, please visit:
Northwest Avalanche Center