Avalanche in Cascade Pass Today?

I heard there was an avalanche in the pass that closed 73 today. Any more info?

A Ride with the Plowman from Saranac during the Storm

I couldn't find anymore more info on the supposed avalanche, but found this amusing.

http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/audio/news070216b.m3u

Rt. 73

I was told by a DOT employee that part of Route 73 was closed on Wednesday due to big snow drifts (wouldn't be surprised if it was Cascades pass as it is always windy there). But looking at the DOT site this evening, the road appears to be open now.

Hopefully there were no avalanches on the road (and hopefully there won't be any this weekend!)

Laurie

I ice climbed at Pitchoff today, and there didn't appear to be any evidence of avalanche activity in the pass. there were, however, quite large snowbanks on either side of the road, and the DOT was using two frontloaders to move snow much of the day on Rt 73, causing traffic to be reduced to one lane.

We did Cascade and Porter today and there was a very large pile of "extra" dirty snow banked against the regular snowbank on the north side of Rt 73 just before the parking areas for Cascade.

There was also a ton of green deicer stuff on that section of roadway.

I must say, the DOT did an awesome job of clearing out all the trailhead parking areas along Rt 73.

Great day for a hike. Very windy on Cascade and there was a small patch of very unconsolidated looking snow just below the slabs up to the summit that some hikers had crossed. It seemed to me to be a very dangerous place to consider crossing, there was nothing to stop anyone who began to slide there and the snow wasn't being held on by anything but very small scub if that (I assume they weren't prepared for the ice on the slab and were trying to get around it)

Yesterday on the day you were talking about we drove through. It was a white out in spots from the blowing snow, and many drifts. One car got sucked off the road onto the slush where the deicer was, but no Avalanche. In fact I don't recall it even being closed.

Rte 86 was closed in Ray Brook, we had to go in Saranac Lake via McKenzie Pond Road. There was a water main breakage.

NYBRAD said:

I couldn't find anymore more info on the supposed avalanche, but found this amusing.

http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/audio/news070216b.m3u

Click to expand...

By coincidence today I was in an 80,000 pound snowplow and I have to tell you I have an absolute new found respect for the driver or any snowplow driver. As soon as I got behind the wheel I was overwhelmed with not what I could see, but by what I COULDN'T see! I was floored! Now that I see what it's like for them I am absolutely amazed that they don't take out all those parked cars, every single mailbox, a few fire hydrants and a few dozen pedestrians to boot! These guys know what they're doing!

Thanks for the road conditions report, Spence!

BC, I still can't get over what a great job the road crews did in both the Daks and VT. Here in Central VT we had pretty much the same amount of snow as we saw in the Keene Valley area yesterday -- and we had all roads open in VT on thursday.

Way to go, snowplow drivers!!