“No one can recall 58 avalanches in Tumwater Canyon at one time.” Area 1 Maintenance Superintendent Rick Wood added, “Especially coming in the space of an hour.” Those avalanches did slam down onto that ten miles of US 2, east of Leavenworth starting around 2 a.m. last Monday morning. By 3 a.m., the highway was closed and 3 semi trucks and a state trooper’s cruiser were stranded between slides.
Leavenworth maintenance called in reinforcements including the avalanche team. By 4:30 a.m. the drivers of the four trapped vehicles had been rescued, but their vehicles would stay put until the avalanche activity stabilized.
Tumwater Canyon got 8 inches of snow on Saturday and another 16 inches on Sunday. When the temperature rose from the low teens over the weekend to the upper 20’s and heavy rain late Sunday night, the recipe for avalanches was in place. A few hours later as the snow became heavier and warmer, it slid.
Two thousand feet higher and 30 miles further west, Stevens Pass was closed at 6:45 a.m. as the avalanche technicians saw the same weather conditions repeating. Avalanche chutes on the west side of the pass absorbed the heavy rainfall and released. Maintenance crews cleaned up the roadway and the pass reopened at 2:30 p.m. Avalanche Control Technician Mike Stanford characterized it as “Passive Control”, “We didn’t have to deliver any explosive charges - the rain flushed the chutes, naturally.”
Back in Tumwater Canyon, avalanche chutes had completely emptied by 10 a.m. allowing crews to get back in and begin the clearing process with plow trucks, a scoop loader and one of the three Kodiak snow blowers from Stevens Pass. The first job, however, was removing the semi with its nose buried in a 17-foot high snow slide and the two other trucks behind that one. By noon, all three trucks and the patrol cruiser were out of the Canyon and on their way – none were seriously damaged.
By 4 p.m., US 2 through Tumwater was cleared, treated and opened for traffic.
Congratulations to the Leavenworth crew – Charlie Styles, Paul Weddle, Devitt Kane, Joseph Welter and Brian Williams and the Avalanche Team, Marty Schmoker and Mike Stanford.