Attention skiers and winter enthusiasts; if you’re looking for your snow fix, Mt. Shasta is the place to be! It’s been a wet and wild week here with some of the heaviest precip ever recorded. We finished with almost 10″ of water falling in town and over 5+ feet of new snow above 8,500′ on the Mountain. Our snowpack is close to 120% of normal and the skiing and riding doesn’t get any better!

Although the snow levels fluctuated quite a bit, for the most part the precip fell as snow on Mt. Shasta except for Sunday which saw some very soggy skiers braving the wet conditions. Fortunately, it cooled off, the snow pack consolidated, and the storm finished with a cool topping for perfect ripping ski conditions. Snow sliders are estatic this week with excellent riding found on many aspects.

Tuesday morning (2.10.15), the sun broke out and displayed what we were all waiting for, a completely snow cloaked Mt. Shasta. We are thrilled because not only is the snow creating some epic backcountry skiing currently, but this last storm cycle has pretty much guaranteed that we will have excellent conditions this Spring and Summer for climbing and sliding.

The big concern with all this rapidly accumulating snow is the increased avalanche hazard. The Mt. Shasta Avalanche Center issued an Avalanche Watch this past weekend and we did observe some activity in Avalanche Gulch which likely occured during the peak of the storm. We did see some significant settling and consolodation, but I would still avoid runout zones and exposure to slopes above.

We are in a break in the storms and this weekend is forecasted for nice weather and mild temps. This is excellent for ourAIARE Level I Avalanche Seminar on Mt. Shasta and we invite you to join us if you have been putting it off. The conditions are perfect for the course and Mt. Shasta will be beautiful under all the Winter snow!

We’re hopefully getting back into storms next week. Be safe and have great fun, we hope to see you on the Mountain!