The Devil went down to John F. Stevens

We traveled to John F. Stevens Canyon to take a look at a large avalanche on Devil's Hump reported Saturday.

• This avalanche failed on a thin layer of facets resting on the 1/13 crust. We did not find buried surface hoar during our travels on the west-facing slope. Debris ran 1000' but appears to have stayed on top of the crust. There was no evidence that it gouged into the snow below the crust.
• Unlike textbook fracture lines with one prominent fracture line and defined flanks, this slide had a series of fracture lines at various elevations with a variety of widths. Each fracture line extended down to the 1/13 crust and varied between one to three feet thick.
• Swirling winds overnight had filled in the skin track from Saturday even in the trees at low-elevations. Moderate winds with strong gusts deposited up to a foot of snow on the debris field by the time we left late afternoon. Wind-blown snow was thick and slabby with cracking common. Today's skin track was indistinguishable within a couple of hours.
• On our exit, the snow quality near the trailhead had deteriorated and become moist and heavy.