May 22, 2025 2 min read

May 20 - Sea to Sky Conditions Update

A wintery looking skintrack below the Colfax Serac!

The season really feels like it’s winding down. Evan has been down in the North Cascades working a ski guide exam while Eric has snuck in a few days in the Sea to Sky this week.

First: have you used the new iPhone satellite messaging feature yet? We’ve had a bunch of people ask if we’ve switched from using our ZOLEOs to the iPhone so here’s an in-depth article about it.

Back to current conditions. Here’s a few notes:

Blackcomb had their closing day on Monday. Conditions in the alpine still looked decent!
Continuous snow at Red Heather starts around the waterfall.
Brandywine was almost drivable to the Brandywine/Metal Dome split. Good conditions and coverage above that.
Duffey Lake Road trailheads are all fully melted out.
Kulshan (Mt. Baker) has 40-60cm recent storm snow on the mid and upper mountain with no real layers of concern aside from isolated pockets of windslab that is settling rapidly. You can currently drive to the parking lot and need to walk approx 40min to reach skiable snow.
Aspect has a big effect on how passable trails/roads are currently. On sheltered roads, you may only be driving to 1000m before being stopped by snow patches. On exposed south facing roads, you may make it considerably higher!

Brandwine and the S2S (left), Colfax (centre), Sherman Peak on Kulshan (right)

The past week has been quite stormy with new snow falling in the alpine. Stability concerns are limited to this new surface snow which may be forming wind slabs and will eventually become wet loose. This cool/wet weather continues for a few more days but we’re expecting the weekend to bring very warm temperatures and a switch to summer. Don’t be caught out on anything big when that switch happens.

For the moment, skiing is definitely still possible in the corridor and the volcanos are definitely in good shape and only improving as summit temps warm up a bit. Mount Rainier climbing rangers have posted a recent blog showing the ID route to be in excellent shape. With some good weather, we’d expect routes like the Fuhrer Finger to be quite good as well.

Cheers to everyone still skiing!