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Skiing, snowboarding, snowmachining, hiking, walking, and all other methods of travel or recreation on snow are dangerous and a potential hazard to personal safety. Each person who ventures onto snow is responsible for his or her own safety. Many snow travelers find that education, information, and experience can increase their safety when they are on snow. The public observations reported on this site may appear to offer information about the safety of traveling or recreating on snow, but it is critical to remember that such observations are not evaluated or edited for accuracy and represent the subjective experience of the author.
Individuals may have widely differing perceptions, for a given location, date, and time, of the safety of traveling or recreating on snow, of avalanche hazards, and of skiing or snowboarding conditions. The hazards and conditions reported in an observation can change rapidly. In addition, individuals can differ greatly in both their perception of objective hazards and their acceptance of the risk to personal safety of these hazards.
Submit an Observation All Regions|Turnagain|Girdwood/Portage|Placer|Summit|Chugach State Park|Hatcher Pass|Outside of Advisory Area| Photos | Date | Location | Observer | Avalanche? | General Observations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1232150400January 17, 2009 12:00 | Outside of Advisory Area - Magnum Western Aspect | There are multiple crown faces that are wind hammered. It is difficult to say exactly what happened here; but, it sure looks like the entire upper bowl (Catcher's Mit) of the western aspect avalanc … | |||
| 1232150400January 17, 2009 12:00 | Outside of Advisory Area - Sunburst North Aspect | You can barely see the debris piles at the bottom of Elevator Shaft and the chute to the looker's right. These natural avalanches possibly happened on Wed. 1/14. | |||
| 1232150400January 17, 2009 12:00 | Outside of Advisory Area - Tincan SW Aspect | This class 2 avalanche happened at 2500' on a SW aspect sometime during the Jan. 13-16 storm. | |||
| 1232150400January 17, 2009 12:00 | Outside of Advisory Area - Tincan West Aspect | This small class 1 avalanche happened at 2500' on a wind-loaded west aspect sometime during the Jan 13-16 storm. | |||
| 1232150400January 17, 2009 12:00 | Outside of Advisory Area - Magnum West Aspect | Here is another photo of the natural avalanche on Magnum that most likely occurred at the end of the storm on Friday 1/16. The debris came down into the alders. | |||
| 1231977600January 15, 2009 12:00 | Outside of Advisory Area - Center Ridge Weather Station | Ben Faucher (the CNFAIC intern) helped hike new batteries up to the Center Ridge Weather Station on 01-15-2009. NRCS is working on getting the station back on line soon. | |||
| 1231977600January 15, 2009 12:00 | Outside of Advisory Area - Center Ridge | We found about 18-20 inches of new snow on top of the facets near the Center Ridge Weather station. We felt several collapses. Hand pits all failed on the back cut. Plus, we remotely triggered t … | |||
| 1231804800January 13, 2009 12:00 | Outside of Advisory Area - Tincan | There are 5-6 inches of facets (square symbol in pit graph) under 4-6 inches of new snow as of 01/13/09. These facets have been failing and causing very small inconsequential avalanches over the p … | |||
| 1231804800January 13, 2009 12:00 | Outside of Advisory Area - Tincan | I dug this pit at 2500 feet on a west aspect. Once we got above treeline where the wind was actively loading leeward aspects, we were able to trigger some small surface soft slabs 3-6 inches thick … | |||
| 1231545600January 10, 2009 12:00 | Turnagain - Pete's North | The notes from this pit mention how the surface facets where easy to sluff out with skis. That is not a good sign that all those facets are so easy to trigger even when there is not a new load of … | |||
| 1231372800January 8, 2009 12:00 | Outside of Advisory Area - Pyramid Mtn. approach | This is a photo of a small skier-triggered sluff avalanche on an east aspect near the powerline at 1300 feet elevation. | |||
| 1230768000January 1, 2009 12:00 | Outside of Advisory Area - Glacier Ranger District Office | Description: December Totals: 2008* 42" Snow*, 3.6" Water* 2007 66" Snow, 5.4" Water 2006 158" Snow, 13.9" Water 2005 43" Snow, 8.7" Water *Center Ridge weather station recorded no data from 12/21-12 … | |||
| 1230595200December 30, 2008 12:00 | Outside of Advisory Area - Main Bowl/Seattle Ridge | Just like Bill's pit on Sunburst on saturday 12/27/08, the top 1- 2 feet of this Main Bowl snowpit shows a bad temperature gradient near the surface. I took a close look with my magnifying glass an … | |||
| 1230336000December 27, 2008 12:00 | Outside of Advisory Area - Sunburst | Check out how the red temperature line shifts way to the left in the top ~40cm (~1-2 feet) of snow. A drastic snow temperature change like this can create facets and make a dangerous weak layer af … | |||
| 1230336000December 27, 2008 12:00 | Outside of Advisory Area - Lipps SW Aspect | Here is a current photo of the large glide crack on the SW face of Lipps. Half of it released 2 weeks ago, with the other half slowly creeping downhill. | |||
| 1229990400December 23, 2008 12:00 | Outside of Advisory Area - Stock Run Bowl NW Aspect | I was unable to find the buried surface hoar or the crust above the October facets that we have seen in other pits. Compression tests showed good stability. My main concern was the failure on top … | |||
| 1229990400December 23, 2008 12:00 | Outside of Advisory Area - Stock Run Bowl/Seattle Ridge | Total snowpack depth at this site was 4.3 feet. I easily found the buried surface hoar mixed with rounding-out facets 3.5 feet down on top of a 4 inch thick crust. This, in turn, was sitting on a … | |||
| 1229558400December 18, 2008 12:00 | Outside of Advisory Area - Cornbiscuit South West Aspect | Rocks that look like chocolate chips in a bowl of ice cream can be likely areas to trigger an avalanche. This is a type of terrain you want to avoid right now. | |||
| 1229558400December 18, 2008 12:00 | Outside of Advisory Area - Cornbiscuit SE Aspect | This pit was about 4 feet deep on top of rocks and tundra. I did not get any failures on the October facets near the ground until I really hammered on my shovel. The weak layer of greatest concer … | |||
| 1229558400December 18, 2008 12:00 | Outside of Advisory Area - Magnum Southwest Aspect | Glide cracks are very easy to see, but difficult to predict. They don't always avalanche. When they do, they fail all the way to the ground. Sometimes they avalanche when its storming, sometimes … | |||
| 1229385600December 16, 2008 12:00 | Outside of Advisory Area - Main Bowl/Seattle Ridge | This snowpit is about 3 feet deep on top of tundra. It looks like it should be unstable; so, it might have some potential in the future. However, my stability tests showed good stability. I coul … | |||
| 1229385600December 16, 2008 12:00 | Outside of Advisory Area - Main Bowl/Seattle Ridge | The total snowpack depth at this pit was 5 feet. I easily found the buried surface hoar above sugary facets 4 feet down, but I could not get it to fail in my stability tests. Only after pounding … | |||
| 1229212800December 14, 2008 12:00 | Outside of Advisory Area - Cornbiscuit Southern Aspect | Excellent rescue skills saved the life of a skier caught in this human-triggered avalanche on the south side of Cornbiscuit on Saturday 12/13/08. GREAT WORK GUYS! We are still gathering informati … | |||
| 1229126400December 13, 2008 12:00 | Outside of Advisory Area - SW face of Cornbiscuit | Here is a stitched together photo of the entire avalanche. You can see people at the bottom where the skier was buried. | |||
| 1229126400December 13, 2008 12:00 | Outside of Advisory Area - SE face Superbowl Peak/Goldpan | This is a closeup of the remote triggered avalanche. Note how the crown face tapers down to the rock on the right where the weak layers at the bottom of the snowpack are close to the surface and t … |
