Heavy snows complicate driving on Washington passes

Stevens Pass was closed again early Friday morning so the state could do some avalanche control.

Just a week ago, there were concerns that there wasn’t enough snow in the mountains, and that the spring runoff wouldn’t be enough to generate power or fill the rivers and stream.

Jeff Adamson, with the Washington State Department of Transportation, says prior to this week they’d hardly touched their avalanche equipment.

“We hadn’t used it yet this winter and then here over the last three days we’ve had avalanche control twice, over the past week, we’ve had it five times.”

The mountains have gotten so much snow the state has hardly been able to keep up.

The new snow is great for skiers, if they can actually get to the slopes, but not so great for drivers who have been stuck off and on all week.

Adamson puts the level of snow we’ve received this week in perspective:

“We went from being 100 inches below our normal snow levels to this morning we’re at 304 inches at Stevens Pass,” he said. “That is just about dead on for average.”

And that happened in a week. A full season’s worth of snow in seven days.

That’s why the avalanche danger has been so high and why the state has had to close the passes so often.