Observation: Girdwood

Location: Crow Creek

Date:
Observer:
Route & General Observations

Out for a quick lap this afternoon. I was surprised how much shallower the snowpack is here compared to Turnagain. It’s clear the 11/29-30 storm skimped this area, with only 6-10″ snow on top of the Thanksgiving crust. This will be an important piece to keep in mind once that layer gets buried deeper.

Weather & Snow Characteristics
Please provide details to help us determine the weather and snowpack during the time this observation took place.
Weather

Increasing cloud cover through the day. Winds were howling across ridgetops in the afternoon, with a lot of snow blowing off ridgetops in the surrounding alpine.

Snow surface

6-10" soft snow on a firm crust, with some variety from the winds over the past few days.

Snowpack

I only dug one pit at 2000', so it's hard to say how representative it is of the broader Crow Creek area. That said, this pit was much shallower than what we've been seeing at Turnagain- with only about 2' snow on the ground. The Thanksgiving crust was buried about 6" below the surface, and there was a thin layer of facets on top of the crust. For areas that are getting wind loaded, or once we get more snow on top of what's already on the ground, this could be a potentially scary snowpack.

Photos & Video
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