Observation: Turnagain

Location: Tincan

Date:

January 1, 2018 8:46pm

Observer:

Johnston-Bloom/ Moderow Professional

Route & General Observations

Toured up standard ski track with a few deviations get on unaffected snow to 2300′. Most of the avalanche activity from yesterday was almost covered over and the ski track was getting blown in. Hand pits varied from failing on isolation at the surfaces hoar to no failure. Received reports of a few small skier triggered slabs. There looked to be a pile of debris parallel to the rocks on Jerome’s dome. This may be same slide noted by Wendy yesterday. Could not get good eyes on alpine terrain to see what was going on above. South on the towards Bertha Creek campground Seattle Ridge is very wind scoured. There is also evidence of the strong winds through the pass. South of the Moto lot is very thin and wind stripped and a few of the rolls near moto lot have mini wind lips on them.

Johnson Pass parking had 4″ storm total and precip was very close to rain at 3:30

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)?	Yes
Cracking (Shooting cracks)?	Yes

Observer Comments

We didn't experience and whumpfing but talked to another skier that had a large collapse that triggered a small slide and talked to another party that had also triggered a small pocket. Moderate to strong ENE winds and precipitation intensity increasing throughout the day.

Weather & Snow Characteristics

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

Weather

Overcast to obscured
Snowing S-1 in am increasing to S 1 after noon. Raining fairly hard below 700' all the way the back to Girdwood at 3:45 pm
ENE winds 30-40 mph gusting into the 60s

Snow surface

New snow: average 15" (40 cm) of total snow from storm starting on the evening of the 30th. Snow became stiffer in areas exposed to wind. Some scouring back down to old wind crust or melt freeze crust.
Snow was notably heavier and moist below 1500'.

Snowpack

40 cm of new snow over buried surface hoar. Below the buried surface hoar In some spots there was 3 cm of near surface faceted snow and in some spots close to 15 cm of near surface faceted snow. The buried surface hoar/near surface facets were over either wind crust or melt-freeze crust depending on location.
New snow would slide easily on the buried surface hoar in shovel tilt tests. Slab was too soft for CTs and ECTs, everything just got crushed.
Dug two pits. Pit #1 was @ 2250' on SE aspect it was more wind affected new snow was just 10."
Pit #2 was around the knob at 2200" on SW aspect it had 15" of new snow and more near surface facets below the buried surface hoar.

Photos & Video

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