Observation: Hatcher Pass

Location: Hatch Pk

Date:
Observer:
Route & General Observations

If you enjoy isothermal snow and skin glopping, than touring up Hatch Pk at 8pm is for you. Just kidding, there’s still supportable snow to be skied. Toured up the road, up Bennets, and part of Hatch. Snow improved as we gained elevation.

Red Flags
Red flags are simple visual clues that are a sign of potential avalanche danger. Please record any sign of red flags below.
Obvious signs of instability
Recent Avalanches?Yes
Collapsing (Whumphing)?No
Cracking (Shooting cracks)?No
Observer Comments

While cornices have been sagging for a while and starting to drop, it appears their debris is now starting to step down pulling additional snow to slide on the slopes below. The north side of the east ride of Hatch Pk had two of these avalanches (see photo attached).

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

42 degrees at the parking are at 7:30pm
Mostly cloudy sky with scattered light snow/rain and a very brief touch of sun. Nice flat light on the way out.
Hatch Pk weather station was recording 8mph winds with gusts to 13mph

Snow surface

Bottom of the road is iso thermal and not very supportable. Husky with snowhoe paws was punching through to chest and knee height
Half way up the road, it became supportable to where the paw pen was wrist deep
Bennet's had a 1.5cm thick melt freeze crust as well as a couple cm of fresh snow. Glopping began about half way up the ridge.
This continued a ways. We did not top out due to the dog being ready to turn around.
Ski down was surprisingly enjoyable. The snow was carvable and fun end of spring skiing (Pro tip, as we get closer to summer, just keep lowering your standards). Even the road skied like nice slush and cut-offs while slushy, were still okay skiing.
There as been significant melting this week. Many tracks from Saturday were not visible and even most of the snowmachine tracks are gone. The new snow and wind put a nice layer down to make everything look smooth.

Snowpack

No formal snow test done.

Photos & Video
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