Turnagain Pass Avalanche Forecast

There were a handful of small soft slab avalanches triggered yesterday. These were relegated to steep rocky zones, ridgelines and rollovers. In the photo below you can see several crowns on the ridge as well as the rollovers around the sun/shade line. Today’s concerns mirror those of yesterday. Though the slab continues to weaken with the cold weather, there are likely still pockets where someone could kick off a slab. These areas are most pronounced in the steep rocky zones and on steep convex rollovers.

Photo: Tincan soft slabs (SW facing ~3,300′)

The weekend’s storm that deposited 14-18+” of very low density snow has been settling quickly – around 6″ in fact. This has helped the snow become more cohesive and hence the slab avalanche activity we have seen over the past couple days. However, counteracting this is the cold and clear weather which is loosening the snow surface and weakening the slab. For anyone headed out today, the majority of the snow surface should feel loose and unconsolidated but keep a close eye for any areas with denser snow.

The snowpack in general has some significant concerns within it for our next load, possibly Wednesday night. Under the new snow is the December drizzle crust which caps a very weak layer of facets. We had reports yesterday of collapsing under the crust in the faceted layer. How will this weak snow/crust/facet combo react as snow continues to pile up is the big question and something we are watching closely.

The cold northerly wind has picked up slightly this morning and is expected to level off in the 15mph range through the day. This should be enough to create soft wind slabs out of the light snow sitting on the surface. Though much of the terrain could remain wind free today, I’d expect there will be some areas the wind will move snow around, most likely on the higher peaks and ridges.