Turnagain Pass Avalanche Forecast

There were no known avalanches triggered yesterday. The last known avalanches were a human triggered cornice fall on Sunday and several natural avalanches with a few human triggered slabs associated with the warm storm last Thursday/Friday. There was a report from an upper elevation southeasterly slope in Lynx drainage of a more recent looking natural slab, which may have occurred over the weekend.

After a couple sunny days to round out the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, clouds have moved back in with a few snow flurries. There is a weak weather system over the region that should peak late tonight/early tomorrow. For today’s daytime hours, the ridgetop easterly winds are increasing to 15-20mph with stronger gusts and will increase further to 25-30mph tonight. Snowfall should only be a trace today but we could wake up to 2-4″ tomorrow morning. That said, wind slabs will remain our main concern.

If you are headed out today, look for any signs of current or prior wind loading, predominantly above 2,500′. There should be enough snow available to transport to form new slabs (in the 6-8″ range) through the day. If winds increase quicker than forecast, your travels back to the parking lot could have more wind effect and wind slab development along ridgelines. As always, watch for stiff snow over softer snow and especially any cracking or whumpfing in the snow around you.

Wind slabs on weak snow? After chatting with the skier who triggered large cracks on a wind loaded slope in upper Girdwood Valley on Sunday, it was determined that the large wind slab could be sitting on weak facets over the New Year’s crust. This area has a shallower snowpack making it a lot easier for wind slabs to form on the crust. The take home here is watch for those red flags and be more suspect in areas where the snowpack is thinner in general (west side of Girdwood Valley and the south end of Turnagain Pass toward Summit Lake).

Cornices:  If getting up to the ridgelines today, be sure to give cornices an extra wide berth.

A new generation of surface hoar is beginning to form on the surface. This photo is from the SW face of Lipps ridge. 1.17.22.

We are continuing to track the New Year’s crust (buried anywhere from 2-5′ deep) and any weak snow that might still be an issue above or below it. So far evidence is pointing to a more stable snowpack, especially in areas with little wind loading. There are also a few buried crusts with looser snow around them within last week’s storm snow below 2,000′. These also have shown signs of bonding. All good news moving forward and triggering a deeper avalanche has become unlikely. Even so, especially in areas with little or no traffic yet this season, we should have our eyes out for any outliers.