Stevens Pass Road Conditions

Last updated at: NOV 5, 2026, 8:55 AM PST · WSDOT · Pass report Thu, Nov 5, 7:29 AM

Stevens Pass is open, no restrictions in either direction, 36 degrees at the summit, road surface bare and wet with ice in places, updated Thu, Nov 5, 7:29 AM.

Live WSDOT status, traction requirements, and cameras for US 2 over Stevens Pass, Skykomish to Coles Corner.

The pass and the highway

Stevens Pass carries US 2 over the crest of the Washington Cascades at 4,061 feet, between the Skykomish River valley on the west and the Wenatchee River country on the east. The crossing is named for John Frank Stevens, the Great Northern Railway engineer who surveyed the route in the 1890s, and the highway and the railroad still share the corridor, switchbacking over the same summit the trains reach through the Cascade Tunnel below. It is Seattle's second Cascade crossing and its most direct line to Leavenworth and Wenatchee, which is why a restriction here is not a local event: on a ski weekend, the whole north half of the Puget Sound region funnels onto this two and four lane road.

The summit itself is compact: the ski area base sits right at the crest, parking fills both sides of the highway, and the road tops out in a notch that catches weather from both slopes. Everything about the pass is compressed, the climb, the summit, the skiing, the slide paths, and the response when something goes wrong. That compression is exactly why a single live source of truth matters here, and why the status at the top of this page is the WSDOT posting itself, with its timestamp, not a summary of it.

What the traction postings mean at Stevens

Washington runs its mountain passes on a traction ladder, and the posting at the top of this page is a legal requirement, not advice. Traction Tires Advised means conditions are building and snow tires are a good idea. Traction Tires Required means your tires must carry the mountain snowflake symbol or an approved traction rating, and two wheel drive vehicles should be carrying chains. Chains Required means chains on every vehicle except all wheel drive. The top rung, Chains Required on All Vehicles Except AWD in its strictest form and the rare all vehicles posting beyond it, closes the loopholes entirely. The full ladder, with the statute behind it, is on the chain and traction law page.

At Stevens the postings are enforced where the road steepens: expect troopers and WSDOT crews near Skykomish and at the summit approaches on restriction days, and expect to be turned around if you arrive at a chains required posting on summer tires. The pass also has a rhythm drivers learn: restrictions usually land in the morning as a storm loads the west slope, tighten through the ski day, and relax in steps, eastbound first some days, westbound first others, which is why this page posts both directions separately instead of one blended status.

The two climbs

West of the summit, the highway climbs out of Skykomish at about 900 feet and gains over 3,000 feet in fifteen miles, the grade easing through Scenic, where the railroad emerges from the Cascade Tunnel, then steepening again past the Old Faithful slide zone to the crest. East of the summit the descent is longer and gentler, dropping through the tunnel creek valley to Coles Corner at about 1,870 feet, then bending down through Tumwater Canyon to Leavenworth. The west climb is the workout: slow trucks, a climbing lane that comes and goes, and weather that builds against the slope. The east descent is the deceiver: it feels like the drive is over at the summit, and it is not, not until the road flattens at Coles Corner.

The cameras in the strip above are placed where the climbs change character: the ski area lodges at the top, the avalanche zones on the upper west slope, Skykomish at the base, and Coles Corner where the east grade ends. Reading them in order before you leave is the closest thing to driving the pass twice, once with your eyes and once with the car.

Both grades ask different things of a vehicle. The west climb is a power test: a loaded car on a long grade at altitude loses pace, trucks slow to a crawl on the steepest pitches, and the temptation to pass on the short straights is the corridor's most reliable source of head on danger, which is why the centerline on this mountain deserves absolute respect. The east descent is a brake test: twenty miles of downhill will cook a dragging brake or an automatic left in drive, and the runaway risk lives in impatience rather than weather. Use the lower gears the transmission gives you, let the engine hold the speed, and save the brakes for the corners. In winter both tests run on a surface that forgives neither, which is why the traction posting, and not your schedule, sets the pace of a Stevens Pass crossing.

Avalanche country

Stevens Pass is a working avalanche corridor. The highway crosses the runouts of major slide paths on the upper mountain, and the camera names tell the story to anyone who reads them: Old Faithful Avalanche Zone, Big Windy. WSDOT avalanche crews forecast these paths all winter, and when the danger climbs they close the highway and bring the snow down with control work, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for half a day, almost always at the worst moment for traffic and the right moment for safety. A closure on a blue sky morning after a storm is usually exactly this: the storm loaded the paths, the sun is warming them, and the crews are clearing the debt before you drive under it. The history of this pass includes the deadliest avalanche in American history, the 1910 Wellington disaster on the railroad just below the summit, and the respect WSDOT shows these slopes is earned. When the pass closes for control work, the correct response is patience, and the status history shows how long recent closures and restrictions actually lasted.

Weather patterns: two climates, one summit

Stevens Pass sits on the seam between maritime Washington and the continental east side, and the summit weather is a negotiation between the two. Pacific storms arrive wet and heavy on the west slope, stacking the famous Cascade concrete that makes the skiing deep and the driving serious. East side air is colder and drier, and on clear winter nights the valleys on both sides fill with fog and frost while the summit sits in bright, still air above the inversion. The practical consequence: conditions at Everett and conditions at Wenatchee can both be mild while the summit is in a full chains required storm, and the reverse happens too, valley ice under a calm pass. That is why this page leads with the summit posting and its temperature, and why the weather section below lets you compare both valley ends against the top.

The drive east makes the seam visible in a single hour. You leave the summit in falling snow, drop through Coles Corner in a mix that cannot decide what it is, and by Leavenworth the sky is often broken blue and the roads dry, the storm spent against the crest behind you. Westbound drivers get the mirror image, and the mistake to avoid is calibrating to the easy end: the valley you start in is never the weather you are driving to. Calibrate to the summit cameras and the summit posting, and let the valleys be the pleasant surprise.

Weather: valley to summit

Driving it well

The drivers who have good days on Stevens Pass share a few habits. They check the status before the valley, not at the chain up sign. They carry chains that actually fit, and they have practiced once in a dry driveway. They leave early on powder days, knowing the Skykomish canyon platoons form by seven, and they treat the Sunday westbound descent as a scheduled event, not a surprise. And they know the alternative honestly: when Stevens is closed or buried, Snoqualmie Pass plus Blewett Pass is the long way around, and sometimes the long way is the fast way.

The storm day version of those habits is the playbook below. None of it is complicated, and all of it is easier at home than at 4,000 feet in the wind.

The Stevens Pass storm day playbook

Before you drive over Stevens Pass