Turnagain Pass

Glide avalanche on Raggedtop, most likely released Tuesday morning, Dec 10th.

Glide avalanches in the Girdwood valley, like this one near Raggedtop, have been reported over the past two days.  Aside from that, the advisory area has experienced no avalanche activity that we know of since the cycle on Monday, Dec 9th.  We also didn’t see any new activity yesterday in the Summit Lake area.

Up in the high elevation terrain where dry snow exists, wind slabs have been forming in the lee of ridges and gullies since Dec. 9. Ridgetop winds have been persistent and steady from the east and averaging over 30mph over the last 24 hours. This combined with a few inches of new snow from last night and a chance for a few more inches today will keep wind slabs, along with cornice falls, a primary concern. Choose your routes carefully and retreat if the snow beneath you becomes stiff and hollow sounding.

Rain up to 3000′ transitions to snow above, which is adding more snow and stress to a persistent weak layer in the higher terrain above 3,000′. We’ve been tracking a layer of facets sitting over a crust near the ground. Our snowpack stability tests consistently indicated this layer was stubborn, but reactive and planar before these series of storms rolled through. Until we know more, we are still concerned it could become overloaded and produce a larger avalanche breaking near the ground.

Snow depths are minimal up to ~1500′.  Near 2500′ and above, snow depths range from 3-6′ where snow is accumulating.

There have been reports of glide cracks and releases within the Girdwood Valley (see photo above).  We’ll continue to monitor if this is a trend throughout the advisory area. Glide avalanche failure is difficult to predict – stay out from underneath these cracks!