Turnagain Pass

Surface instabilities in the form of fresh wind slabs make up the primary avalanche concern today.  With more wind than precipitation yesterday in the Turnagain pass area we can expect to find wind slabs in the 6-12” range on wind-loaded and cross-loaded slopes above treeline.  As these last couple of storms have come in quite warm, wind slabs appear to be adhering well and may be stubborn to initiate.  Very steep, wind-loaded terrain may be the exception.  Overall, across the Turnagain pass zone (and above about 2K), the snowpack is deep and is lacking any reactive persistent weak layers.  Aside from glide cracks (more info below) any instability today should be relegated to the top 12-18” of our snowpack.  You can quickly test for surface instability by conducting hasty hand pits or jumping on (no consequence) test slopes with your skis or machine. 

Cornices deserve a note as well, as these warm, windy storms prove ideal to continue to add to their mass.  Avoid time spent below and when travelling along a corniced ridge, whether on skis or snowmachine maintain a healthy distance (and then some!) from the edge.  

Note: The Girdwood Valley recieved about twice as much water (.9″) as Turnagain pass yesterday.  If venturing into the upper elevations around Girdwood, fresh wind slabs and storm slabs are likely to be thicker.  

Visibility yesterday limited a look at many of the glide cracks that we’ve been monitoring over the last 2-weeks, including a behemoth on the SW face of Corn Biscuit.  If someone were to tangle with a glide avalanche, it would simply be a ‘wrong place at the wrong time’ scenario.  It’ll be best to limit or avoid altogether time spent underneath glide cracks and recognize them for the dangerous, unpredictable avalanche problem that they are.

This photo is of a very large glide crack as observed last Thursday, 1/21.  Yesterday, visibility was too poor to see if this had progressed anymore toward failure but see Wendy’s obervation from 1/24.  She was able to see visible changes in this crack over an hour timespan.  

Another concern today in this mid-elevation band comes in the form of wet-loose avalanches as the snowpack is quite heavy and wet below 2,000′.  With continued warmer than normal temps and a slight chance of a few rays of sun today, we may see some wet-loose and/ or roller ball activity in steep, mid-elevation terrain.