Clear skies, no precip, no wind
Observation: Chugach State Park
Location: Bear Valley
Toured up Bear Valley to check the structure of the snowpack.
Weather
Snow surface
The snow surface was wind-affected for the majority of our tour with sastrugi or windboard.
At the beginning of our tour, we observed small surface hoar crystals and a very thin brittle melt-freeze crust.
Where there were patches of softer snow, we observed near-surface facets forming at the surface.
Snowpack
We dug one snowpit, info is below:
Location: Bear Valley
Elevation: 2,400'
Aspect: 4
Slope: 25 degrees
Test results: ECTP13 on windslab/near-surface facet interface ~15 cm down from the snow surface. After our ECT test was over and we were prying the snow block to fill in the snow pit- the snow block broke on the thin layer of facets above the Thanksgiving crust. We did not observe basal facets in our pit- but we were at a lower elevation. We had plans to dig one more pit above 3000', however, when we probed around for a good snowpit location, we could only feel very wind-affected snow.
Fair structure, good stability, moderate propagation potential
View of Anchorage from our skin track. Photo by John Sykes
Sastrugi
Bare tundra along the ridge
John on the final push to the ridge. Flattop, Peak 2, Peak 3, and Peak 4 in the background
