| Trigger | Natural | Remote Trigger | Unknown |
| Avalanche Type | Hard Slab | Aspect | Southwest |
| Elevation | 1800ft | Slope Angle | unknown |
| Crown Depth | 24in | Width | 50ft |
| Vertical Run | 50ft |
Avalanche: Chugach State Park
Location: Anchorage Front Range
Short tour on the southern end of Anchorage front range with an assessment mindset. Scaled back any ideas of getting into avy terrain today after several LARGE whumpfs.
Avalanche Details
Natural avalanche looks like it occurred on Monday or Tuesday during this last warm up/ storm. Small, wind loaded terrain feature that produced the avalanche. Given small terrain feature this did not run far but was as deep of a fracture as I’ve ever seen in this spot.
Obvious signs of instability
| Recent Avalanches? | Yes |
| Collapsing (Whumphing)? | Yes |
| Cracking (Shooting cracks)? | No |
Observer Comments
Very large whumpfs and lots of them!
Weather
17F at the parking lot. Winds were light (less than 5mph). Snow was picking up around 4p to S -1.
Snow surface
4-6” low density fluff on top of a semi supportable wind crust.
Snowpack
Dug a pit after one exceptionally large whumpf at 1800’. This was adjacent to natural ax.
HS: 110cm
NW aspect.
23 degree slope
ECTP11, 12 on facets above stout m/f crust (Halloween storm?).
Buried surface hoar layer down 30cm was easy to see/ produce a plane. Ect’s we’re breaking deeper in the pack on the bottom of a thick (20cm) layer of facets, ~80cm down.
Natural ax from Monday or Tuesday, likely during warm storm.
Snowpit from 1800’. Believe it or not, BSH wasn’t the problem…. Fist full of facets were responsible for several large whumpfs and dicey results in the pit.