Turnagain Pass Avalanche Forecast

After 8 days of brilliant sunny skies and springtime temperatures, a few clouds and cooler air is slated to move in today. The decrease in temperature will limit wet avalanche activity on south facing slopes and avalanche danger has dropped to Normal Caution (LOW danger). Over the past week, avalanche activity has been related to afternoon warming on southerly facing slopes. This triggered a number of wet loose slides, a few moist slabs and a few glide avalanches. As the southerly slopes now sport a solid sun crust, which may not soften today, and wet avalanches are not expected, glide avalanches are the exception moving forward. Things to keep in mind if you are headed out today:

• Glide avalanches – Several small glide cracks released yesterday. These types of avalanches are highly destructive, unpredictable and not associated with human triggers. It’s always best to watch for and limit exposure under glide cracks.
• Dry-loose sluffs – Loose surface snow exists in steep shaded terrain. Dry sluffs can move faster than expected or knock a person over.
• Cornice falls – As always in mountain travel, give cornices a wide berth. 
• An outlier slab avalanche – Although it is unlikely a person could trigger a slab avalanche, the mountains can harbor surprises, especially in thin snowpack areas. Considering the consequences before entering into high consequence terrain and maintaining good travel protocol are good habits that could pay off one day.

Glide avalanches on the lower portion of Raggedtop Mtn, releasing yesterday (3/1). Photo taken from Girdwood.

Recent wet loose avalanche activity in upper Glacier Creek / Girdwood Valley. 

South of Turnagain – Summit Lake and Silvertip zones:  For anyone traveling in this area note that a shallow snowpack with a generally poor structure exists. A variety of old weak layers (facets and buried surface hoar) sit in the mid and base of the snowpack. It is uncertain as to how reactive these layers are at this point and if they could produce a slab avalanche. We do know whumpfing has been observed in the Summit area and last Thursday’s (2/21) wind event triggered many large slab avalanches breaking in deeper weak layers. Assessing the slab as well as the weak layer will be important. Old wind slabs in steep terrain sitting on weak snow are the most suspect places to trigger an avalanche.