Tenderfoot | Chugach Avalanche Center

Avalanche Details

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Trigger	Natural	Remote Trigger	Unknown
Avalanche Type	Wet Loose Snow	Aspect	East Southeast
Elevation	3300ft	Slope Angle	unknown
Crown Depth	unknown	Width	unknown
Vertical Run	unknown

Avalanche Details

Natural avalanche observed in motion on Summit Peak at 3 pm

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

Lots of natural avalanche activity and rapidly warming temperatures

Weather & Snow Characteristics

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

Weather

Mostly sunny becoming high overcast in the afternoon
Calm winds
Temperatures in the 40°Fs

Snow surface

Moist crust at 1200 pm at 1200' (road level). Route is predominately westerly and crust was supportable up to around 2600' where is transitioned to a moist wind crust. Snow on slightly NW was dry and on SW was wet. Descent at 4 pm the surface was softening. Around 2300' turns were sinking on on WSW aspect but not punchy but progressively sticky and wet on the way down to road.

Snowpack

1230 pm -We dug in quickly to check out the crust at 1900' on a west aspect 30° slope. There was a 10 cm melt-freeze crust over moist trending to dry snow below.

230 pm -We dug at 2450' on a NW aspect on a 22° slope. Moist temperature crust on wind crust over dry snow. Layer of small facets 15 cm down CT13, ECTN12. There is a layer of small facets and buried surface hoar 40 cm down CT23, ECTX. Air temp (shaded) was 7°C/44°F, surface temp (shaded) was -1°C/30°F and 20 cm down was -5°C/23°F.

4 pm - We dug quick pits at 3400' on W and SW to look as surface warming. West aspect had a thin layer of wet snow over a hard wind crust and then fist hard facets over another layer of hard wind compacted snow. South aspect surface was wet grains over snow just becoming very wet over dry snow below.

Photos & Video

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