Western North America Conditions 2025/26

[tseeb]

Also posted some of this in Shasta thread that @jamesdeluxe brought back from the dead

From Mt Ashland's Mountain Report Page: "Beginning Thursday, January 15, 2026, Mt. Ashland Ski Area is forced to pause Ski Operations indefinitely due to low snowpack, warm weather in the forecast and no snowfall projected. All terrain and chairlifts are closed." They report 15" at Base, 24" mid-mountain and 0" at top on 42" season snowfall.

There are rumors that Willamette Pass who reports 3/6 lifts and 7/30 trails open and an11" base after 36" season snowfall could be next.

 

[Skieric]

I am currently at Mustang. Surprisingly skiing is better than I was expecting. Clear blue skis and temps fluctuating around the freezing mark. As Tony speculated, we are predominantly skiing in the alpine. We have been getting predominantly spring like conditions with some recrystallized snow and also some corn on south facing slopes. Surfaces are predominantly soft, but certainly not fresh powder.

 

[Tony Crocker]

We have been getting predominantly spring like conditions with some recrystallized snow and also some corn on south facing slopes. Surfaces are predominantly soft, but certainly not fresh powder.

That warm? If the south facing corn is from rain, I'd expect north facing to be bulletproof. One possible explanation: it snowed but was very high water content snow that is more likely to transition to spring conditions on sunny exposures. That's still surprising at 50 degrees latitude in January though.

 

[Skieric]

That warm? If the south facing corn is from rain, I'd expect north facing to be bulletproof. One possible explanation: it snowed but was very high water content snow that is more likely to transition to spring conditions on sunny exposures. That's still surprising at 50 degrees latitude in January though.

Rain was predominantly below 6000 feet, and moisture petered ot when temperatures warmed above freezing to 10000 feet. Somehow sun actually feels warm now. Lows around 20 and highs upper 20’s. Lower elevation that got full on rain are indeed bulletproof. Higher elevations have varying surfaces that are carvable to soft depending on aspect. Best skiing has been alpine with some afternoon softening of lower elevation rain crust in the afternoon. Snow has been developing facet changes, corn and some surface hoar depending on aspect, elevation, wind exposure. Overall guides are finding fun lines and the group is having a good time, however 2 feet of fresh powder would be better.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Competent guides can often extract maximum fun from challenging circumstances. But the key is that weather is allowing you to stay above tree/rain line. This is the third Mustang TR posted on FTO that has more challenging conditions than any of my 10 tours. Hopefully that will change before Tseeb arrives Feb. 20.

 

[takeahike46er]

The forecast for Whistler is depressing. The GDPS, GFS and ECMWF are all in agreement that precipitation in the next 10 days is negligible. If the forecast verifies, Whistler will be approaching 3 weeks without any meaningful precipitation and 3 weeks where off piste is largely unskiable due to rain up to 2400 meters.

Advanced and expert skiers would be best to avoid Whistler for the foreseeable future unless they are okay with fast groomers and fabulous views.

For most of my ski season, I try to be flexible and not book Whistler ski days in advance. The only exception in recent years has been the last week of January. If this forecast verifies, of the last 4 years, 3 will have had icy conditions where off piste was unskiable following a similar pattern.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Whistler will be approaching 3 weeks without any meaningful precipitation and 3 weeks where off piste is largely unskiable due to rain up to 2400 meters.

That was 6 weeks in 2005. But normally the PNW gets frequent enough winter storms that these conditions don't last too long. I'm not pleased as I hit the road for Canada Feb. 8 and it doesn't look I'm likely to see good conditions anywhere along the way.

For most of my ski season, I try to be flexible and not book Whistler ski days in advance.

I've never thought of Whistler that way. Rain into the alpine like Jan. 7-8 is fairly rare. To me the risk is that the alpine is inaccessible due to visibility or snow stability during/after storms, similar to Mammoth. I've never had bad snow in the Whistler alpine on destination trips in 1991, 1998, 2005, 2008, 2015, 2017. I know I was lucky in 2005 and 2015, which had some long stretches with the conditions takeahike46er describes now.

 

[Skieric]

Another scenic photo from yesterday at Mustang. Touring out of a run called 5th dimension.

 

[EMSC]

Touring out of a run called 5th dimension.

Wow, the snow is so bad they actually have you doing some touring? Or is it more traversing in/out of areas.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

I'm considering getting a base grind to prepare for my visit to Colorado in two weeks.

 

[Skieric]

Wow, the snow is so bad they actually have you doing some touring? Or is it more traversing in/out of areas.

By the 3rd day, we had skied a lot of the alpine and 4 of us wanted to try touring to do something different and therefore approached the guide with a request to try some touring. For me, I had never done skinning before and felt this was an excellent opportunity to try it with excellent guide support. The run we did with touring had cat access to the top, but no lower cat access. Therefore we skinned up about 15 minutes to get back to a cat road, however the majority of the vertical was by snowcat. One person in our group was over 120 days at Mustang and this was the first time he had skied this run.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I'm considering getting a base grind to prepare for my visit to Colorado in two weeks.

No, you will need the base grind AFTER your visit to Colorado in two weeks.

By the 3rd day, we had skied a lot of the alpine and 4 of us wanted to try touring to do something different and therefore approached the guide with a request to try some touring. For me, I had never done skinning before and felt this was an excellent opportunity to try it with excellent guide support. The run we did with touring had cat access to the top, but no lower cat access. Therefore we skinned up about 15 minutes to get back to a cat road, however the majority of the vertical was by snowcat.

The small group/steep chutes groups are told that they may do some hiking or skinning to reach places not accessible by snowcat. I wondered about 5th Dimension when skieric mentioned it. It's Mustang's longest run over over 5,000 vertical and the lower half would be very unpleasant right now. I skied it once in 2019 and we still traversed out after 4,000 vertical. One other time I believe I skied a just the top 1,000 with a direct cat pickup. With Eric's presumably intermediate length run it probably required the skinning to get out to a cat pickup.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

No, you will need the base grind AFTER your visit to Colorado in two weeks.

I ruined my own joke but Tony addressed the point. I was trying to say that I needed to have sharp edges for Colorado.

 

[ChrisC]

By the 3rd day, we had skied a lot of the alpine and 4 of us wanted to try touring to do something different and therefore approached the guide with a request to try some touring. For me, I had never done skinning before and felt this was an excellent opportunity to try it with excellent guide support. The run we did with touring had cat access to the top, but no lower cat access. Therefore we skinned up about 15 minutes to get back to a cat road, however the majority of the vertical was by snowcat. One person in our group was over 120 days at Mustang and this was the first time he had skied this run.

Wow, the snow is so bad they actually have you doing some touring? Or is it more traversing in/out of areas.

Curious: how much hiking is involved in Small Groups, Steep Chutes? I assume most of it involves access where snowcats can't go.

It's desirable to have only 6 skiers per line instead of 12.


Some guides in the Alps and smaller BC/Alaskan heli operators limit groups to 4 persons due to equipment and/or terrain/couloir safety.

Courmayeur Guides limit Skyway Monte Bianco groups to 2 people for the south-side couloirs and glaciers.

 

[EMSC]

Curious: how much hiking is involved in Small Groups, Steep Chutes? I assume most of it involves access where snowcats can't go.

First time I've ever heard of it happening. The guy with 120 days at Mustang referred to by Skieric told me just last year that he had never seen it occur and that no one, even the small groups wants to spend time climbing if the snow is already decent... They all want more runs not less. I guess the snow was bad enough or repetitive enough runs this year that they finally decided quality was only achievable by reducing quantity of runs.

 

[Skieric]

Curious: how much hiking is involved in Small Groups, Steep Chutes? I assume most of it involves access where snowcats can't go.

It's desirable to have only 6 skiers per line instead of 12.


Some guides in the Alps and smaller BC/Alaskan heli operators limit groups to 4 persons due to equipment and/or terrain/culoir safety.

Courmayeur Guides limit Skyway Monte Bianco groups to 2 people for the south-side couloirs and glaciers.

We did 2 total runs that involved ski touring. Vertical assent each time was approximately 100 meters and we likely spent about 15 minutes each time skinning up. We also did another run with a short 5-8 minute boot pack up to a higher location.. The small groups, steep chutes, clearly states that some self propelled travel will be required.

 

[Skieric]

First time I've ever heard of it happening. The guy with 120 days at Mustang referred to by Skieric told me just last year that he had never seen it occur and that no one, even the small groups wants to spend time climbing if the snow is already decent... They all want more runs not less. I guess the snow was bad enough or repetitive enough runs this year that they finally decided quality was only achievable by reducing quantity of runs.

Mark was on his 3rd trip this season when we started. He told me that every trip this year has involved some uphill assent. He even had a special run on day 2 with a 2 hour touring assent to the very summit of their highest peak. He was able to ski a long steep descent that is rarely skied. I think this may be more a function of the clients having an interest in some ski touring and also not having classic deep powder days. The weather honestly was perfect for doing some uphill assents. Clear skies, temps hovering around 0 c and light winds. When I talked to Kristen in the booking office before going up, she told me to be expect to do some touring and recommend renting high quality touring gear from a shop in Revy. After taking the time and $ to rent the touring gear, I was certainly interested in trying it out and discussed this with our group and the guide.

 

[takeahike46er]

I've never thought of Whistler that way. Rain into the alpine like Jan. 7-8 is fairly rare. To me the risk is that the alpine is inaccessible due to visibility or snow stability during/after storms, similar to Mammoth.

Maybe it has been a rough stretch of years since I moved to the Lower Mainland, or maybe I’m just spoiled by years of trips to the intermountain west using your data as a guide but…

In my experience, the alpine conditions at Whistler are not nearly as reliable as the regions with elite snow preservation. I haven’t kept thorough records to confirm, but it certainly feels like it has rained up into the alpine at least once per winter season since I moved here. In addition, extended periods of warm weather at elevation followed by a drop in temperatures are also not uncommon and can occur multiple times per winter. As a result, the alpine is rendered unskiable for chunks at a time. Thank goodness Whistler has a great selection of groomers to fallback on during these periods.

Add in the risk you identified of the alpine being closed during stormy weather, combined with steadily rising freezing levels threatening the quality of skiing below treeline, and the result is a good number of days per season where the skiable footprint is quite limited and the experience is subpar.

The rest of the time, Whistler is a fantastic, elite level ski experience that I feel lucky to have so close.

 

[Tony Crocker]

it certainly feels like it has rained up into the alpine at least once per winter season since I moved here.

That is my impression though I haven't tracked it either. But despite what's happening now the PNW is less prone to prolonged dry spells than most ski regions and thus a rained upon alpine is more often than not resurfaced within a week or so.

In addition, extended periods of warm weather at elevation followed by a drop in temperatures are also not uncommon and can occur multiple times per winter.

Three of my 6 Whistler trips were in late March/early April. My impression was that the Whistler alpine had similar snow preservation as Mammoth at that time of year, but all 3 trips had some new snow (only one of those a big dump though). I know that the Mammoth high alpine is retaining winter snow during the current dry spell with high temps over 40F and have seen that after a month with no new snow. Mammoth's alpine will get icy midwinter only with rain or freezing fog.

With the rule of thumb that moving one degree north in latitude is equivalent to moving 275 feet up in altitude, Whistler's 7,000 and Mammoth's 11,000 foot peaks look equivalent. But I suspect there is an absolute altitude effect upon snow preservation with the thinner air, based upon some April ski days in Colorado at elevations higher than Mammoth's.

Whistler also has more humidity and overcast skies without snow. I have guessed that mid-April and later spring skiing might be more variable than at Mammoth due the more consistent clear skies/overnight freezes in the Sierra.

Whistler/Blackcomb is my 8th most skied destination with 29 days and 672K vertical skied in 6 different seasons. Yet takeahike46's comments suggest that's an inadequate sample size for an accurate impression.

To me Whistler's big plus over Mammoth is not so much wind. Powder skiing is far better at Whistler most of the time.

 

[tseeb]

OpenSnow's Tahoe post for today ends with:

"I don't like posting that we're screwed, but we looked screwed for at least 2-3 weeks this morning. Pray for another miracle to arrive sooner than later...

Stay tuned...BA"