Turnagain Pass

Other than one fresh looking glide avalanche in the Seattle Creek drainage, no new natural or human triggered avalanches were reported. The last avalanches seen/reported were from Saturday and Sunday when the Holiday storm deposited 2-3 feet of snow accompanied by strong east winds.

Yesterday, gusty ridgetop winds were depositing snow on leeward features from Turnagain Pass to Girdwood. They began in the afternoon and ramped up in the evening, in the 25-50 mph range. These winds combined with all the snow available for transport likely drifted snow into 1-2’ wind slabs. The wind has died down this morning, which will allow the snow to adjust to this load. However, there is a chance that a person could trigger one of these wind slabs. As you are traveling, feel for stiffer snow over softer snow and look for shooting cracks under your machine, board, or, skis. These are great indicators telling you that there is a combination of a wind slab over softer snow. If triggered, these avalanches could become more dangerous if they step down into a layer of buried surface hoar 2-3’ deep.

Avalanches failing under the Holiday storm snow are still a concern. While the Holiday storm has had some time to settle, the surface hoar that it buried has been identified in snowpits between 2 and 3’ deep. This would have been on the surface before the Holiday storm started. First of all, we do not know how intact and widespread this layer is. It was buried between two very soft layers of snow and in many places could be hard to pick out and not an issue. However, this may not be the case everywhere. Therefore, we are still concerned that a person could trigger this layer and get caught up in a large avalanche. While we keep getting more intel, this is a heads-up situation where conditions can seem a lot safer than they might actually be. This a difficult problem to identify and why we recommend a cautious mindset. There is plenty of great skiing to be had in less consequential terrain until we know more.

Ridgetop winds transporting snow yesterday in the afternoon in the Portage area. 12.26.2023

Surface hoar identified 3′ deep but did not fail in stability tests on Tincan yesterday at 1,900′. 12.26.2023

Glide cracks and glide avalanches have been observed all along both sides of Turnagain Pass, in Girdwood Valley and south through Summit Lake. Two newer glide avalanches were seen on Seattle Ridge on Monday. It is important to look for and know how to identify what these cracks and avalanches look like. Because these avalanches release to the ground it can be easy to spot them as “brown frowns” as they open or “brown spots” when they release. It is important to minimize exposure under these glide cracks because they can spontaneously release and be large and dangerous.

Glide crack on Main Bowl in the Seattle Ridge area. Photo by Troy Tempel 12.26.2023 

The Thanksgiving crust/facet combo is now sitting under 4-6 feet or more of snow. We still have not seen avalanches releasing on this layer after the storm but that does not mean this layer is not capable of sliding. Only three days have passed since the storm. We are still gathering information on if there was avalanche activity on this layer.  This would have created a very large slide with a big crown face. Due to the depth, the layer is not only very difficult to assess at this point, but also would be very difficult to trigger. We are not forgetting about it however and will continue to look for any evidence that it could be reactive.