Turnagain Pass

Due to early season conditions, for both the snowpack and our operations, we will be issuing intermittent snow and avalanche updates until November 17th, as conditions dictate.

BOTTOM LINE

Despite minimal snow cover and only 3-5″ of new snow today (Wednesday), avalanche conditions remain touchy on the upper elevation slopes due to the presence of a persistent weak layer in our snowpack. The potential for a person to trigger a 1-3′ deep slab avalanche continues to be possible above treeline in the Turnagain Pass and surrounding areas (including the Girdwood Valley and Summit lake regions). See the discussion below regarding two human caused avalanches from over the weekend. Many of these upper elevation slopes are hanging in the balance, due to our poor snowpack structure, and need either a person or a decent storm to get them to slide. Areas below treeline and lower angle slopes (where most people have been recreating) have a lower avalanche potential and have remained intact.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Keep checking the photos/observations page for early season information. Also, the calendar page is filling up with free awareness classes and other avalanche education courses offered in our area.

SNOWPACK and AVALANCHE DISCUSSION

Over the long holiday weekend we heard of two human triggered avalanches. The first was on Saturday Nov. 10th in the higher terrain above Girdwood Valley. This slide caught, carried and partially buried two people while ascending a slope – a great write up can be found HERE. The second was on Monday Nov. 12 and occurred on Todd’s run, a northwest facing bowl off the Tincan ridgeline. Details are limited with this second slide but can be found HERE.

The suspected weak layer for both of these avalanches is the October faceted snow. This “sugary” layer is 4-8″ thick and sits on the ground or old hard snow left over from the summer. Above the faceted layer is 10-24+” of snow from early November that varies from unsupportable loose powder to hard wind slab. The areas of most concern are where the Nov snow is supportable to the weight of a person, such as wind slabs. Hollow, or punchy snow is something to look for as well as listening for whoomphing, feeling for collapsing and watching for cracking.

With a few inches, and possibly up to 6″, of new snow, sluffs and some smaller new snow slab avalanches may be seen Thursday into Friday. Keep in mind these new snow instabilities, involving only the new snow, are less concerning than triggering an avalanche that breaks into the October snow.

The above avalanche is on Todd’s run, a NW facing bowl off of the Tincan ridge. Believed to be skier triggered on Monday.

Looking forward to the next significant storm: We are still waiting for a system to roll through large enough to add a big load to our pack and hopefully shake up this pestering faceted later. When this happens we could see slides propagate in areas that are not expected and remote triggers (for example, triggering an avalanche on top of you from below).