Turnagain Pass

Another day of brilliant sunshine, warm ridgetop temperatures and mostly LOW avalanche danger will bring in the first day of Fabulous February. Believe it or not, during the last couple days of January the sun was just strong enough, and winds calm enough, to form a sun crust on some steep Southerly slopes. Yes, already! This is not the case everywhere, but heads up when choosing to brave the alders and low snow hazards in search of those sunlit slopes. We do have a few surface instabilities to watch out for today. These are:

Loose Snow Avalanches:
On steep slopes, > 40 degrees, watch your sluff. Dry sluffs on the shady aspects should be relatively shallow and manageable. The damp sluff variety on South aspects however, is more concerning; mainly do to the heavier character of the debris. It is warm at the upper elevations currently (33F at Sunburst) and today on sunny slopes out of the wind, watch for the snow to become damp and event wet. Steep chutes and gullies baking in the sun would be the best place to get a sizeable damp sluff moving.

Wind Slabs and Cornices:
Shallow wind slabs may be found off ridgelines to the East and South of Turnagain Pass. Plumes by a slight bump in Easterly winds yesterday were noted by one observer in the Kickstep and Lipps areas.

*If you are taking advantage of the increasing daylight and venturing far from the road to more remote areas, say on a supertour, remember there is always the chance for finding a wind slab, triggering a cornice fall or stumbling onto some other type of unstable snow. Not being complacent and keeping with safe travel practices will hedge your bets in the mountains, a good general rule for all of us to follow.

Surface Conditions?
Although the avalanche danger has not changed for weeks, the snow sure has. The top 2-6+” of the snow surface has been undergoing quite an impressive near surface faceting phase. This is not an issue now, as it all sits on the surface, but has the potential for becoming a significant weak layer in the future. For this to happen it has to snow of course; not rain or be blown to Prince William Sound. For now however, it is supplying some great recrystallized powder (aka, ‘loud powder’, ‘square powder’, etc.) for those making the trek to the higher elevations. (Check out this great photo sent in yesterday of the snow surface and its varying surface layers as well as our write up HERE.)

Sun crust. Believe it or not.