a "snowpit" showing the snowpack in the vast majority of the low angle terrain around False Peak
our skin track hit a lot of rocks, and traversed a huge array of different snowpacks, in order to reach high elevation steep soft turns.
Observation: Chugach State Park
Location: O'Malley
Toured from Glen Alps under Little O’Malley and False, to ski a line near O’Malley proper.
It took a lot of looking to find a snowpack deep enough for turns. Much of our 8 mile tour had a snow pack of just a few inches.
Above 3,000 ft and in steeper terrain there was high variability. We found the Thanksgiving Crust in a few places. We also found ice at the ground, and varying levels of stiff wind slab under several inches of loose new snow.
There was wide spread surface hoar, <1cm in size. And, single digit temps F were definitely faceting the thin snowpack.
No red flags, no tests done. Good powder turns were found in a narrow gully.