Observation: Girdwood

Location: Crow Pass

Date:
Observer:
Route & General Observations

Toured and booted up to Jewel on the Crow Pass cabin trail from the Girdwood side Sunday morning. There was about 3” of new snow when we left the parking lot at 930a, actively snowing. The two avalanche paths across the upper trail from a few weeks back had melted out, but by the time we made it to the toe of Jewel it was snowing so hard we couldn’t see and bailed. Lots of drifting/wind effect, our prints were completely covered with snow as we headed back, about 6-7” in the parking lot at 2pm.

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

Steady wet snow at the trailhead, snowing harder but with drier snow on the glacier. 3-4” of accumulation in the 3.5 hours. Probably just around freezing.

Snow surface

New wet, heavy snow down load. Lighter drifting snow up higher.

Snowpack

Up near the glacier there was about 6” of new snow on top of the pretty firm frozen layer from previous weeks. Wind made it a bit variable, with low spots having 12-15” of new snow.

Photos & Video
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