Turnagain Pass Avalanche Forecast

With little change in the weather and the days since avalanche activity increasing, the chances of triggering an avalanche are decreasing. The core Turnagain terrain is trending towards LOW hazard. However, we are still concerned about someone triggering a hard slab avalanche 2-4’ deep, especially in periphery areas like Girdwood and the South end of the pass towards Johnson and Lynx. The weak layers in the snowpack that formed in January will not just go away but over time can become “dormant”. The question is… are they? Without any big changes in the weather, these older layers (facets and buried surface hoar) are becoming more and more difficult to trigger and we are in a low probability, high consequence situation. The tricky part about this is, the pack appears to be stable but the chance remains for an unmanageable and destructive avalanche if a person hits just the wrong spot. No obvious signs of instability may be present before a slope releases and it may be the 10th skier or snowmachiner onto a slope that finds a trigger point. These trigger spots will be in thinner areas of the snowpack near rocks or in scoured areas along ridges. Although triggering a slab remotely is also becoming less likely with time, it is not out of the question with this snowpack structure. 

If the sun does shine today be aware of warming later in the day on Southerly slopes. 

Poor snowpack structure in Summit Lake. The concern is that the snowpack in the Southern end of the pass is very similar to this and a trigger spot may still be found.

It can be hard to remember that under all the hard wind affected snow and crusts there is a slab over buried weak layers. 

Many cornices are quite large. Temperatures have been cool lately but as we head into warmer, sunnier weather remember this can help de-stabilize them. As always, give cornices plenty of space and limit exposure underneath them.