Observation: Chugach State Park

Poked around the Peak 3 area to see what the conditions were like. As stated in a previous observation,
the snowpack was dismal consisting of wind scoured and wind blown areas. I toured/bushwhacked up
the SW facing bowl below Peak 2 and dug a pit a few hundred feet below the summit, in a wind blown
pocket. My goal was to see how reactive the windslabs were. There was a 35cm windslab on top of 25cm
of old rotten depth hoar, which poured out of the pit when digging. I performed an ECT and CT test with
both failing and sliding into the pit while isolating the column, scary stuff! The CT failed on top of the
depth hoar and the ECT failed at the ground.

I would say this extreme sign of instability is scattered throughout the area but isolated in small pockets.
We’ll need a lot more snow before the skiing would be worth the effort to get up there.