Observation: Girdwood

Location: Kern Creek

Date:
Observer:
Route & General Observations

Toured up Kern Creek and over a 3000′ pass that is southeast of Big League (Hibbs Peak). Then descended into Winner Creek and skied out the Winner Creek trail.

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

Clear skies and calm to light winds. Temperatures in the single digits at low elevations and 20s at upper elevations.

Snow surface

Down low there was a layer of large surface hoar crystals on top of a few inches of soft faceted snow on top of a supportable crust. As we climbed we found an icy crust on the surface that was breakable in some areas and supportable in others. There was a lot of wind affected snow (sastrugi) above treeline. Descending into Winner creak there was still a thin breakable (2-4mm) crust on the surface, but there was consistently 2-6" of soft snow underneath.

Snowpack

We dug several hand pits and jumped on test rolls to assess surface snow conditions and never found any reactive wind features or interfaces in the upper snowpack. We did not stop to dig a formal snow pit.

Photos & Video
Please upload photos below. Maximum of 5 megabytes per image. Click here for help on resizing images. If you are having trouble uploading please email images separately to staff.