| Recent Avalanches? | No |
| Collapsing (Whumphing)? | Yes |
| Cracking (Shooting cracks)? | No |
Observation: Turnagain
Location: Tincan Trees
Skinned to tree line, wanted to see impressive results from this storm, didn’t see much. Hippy Bowl looked scoured, snow pack in the trees is still minimal.
Obvious signs of instability
Observer Comments
We saw debris piles and crowns from several natural avalanches along the Seward Highway between Indian and Girdwood, but did not notice any in Turnagain Pass.
We had some very minor whumphing at the top of our tour (2,200'), but much less than expected and nothing that concerned us.
Weather
Sunny, calm, and warm.
40F at Placer, 34F at Tincan Lot, maybe below freezing at 2,200ft.
We could see snow transport happening from wind on top of Peak 4940 (name? SW end of Turnagain) and off some peaks at the back of Skookum and Spencer glaciers. But, there was only a slight breeze above treeline at Tincan.
Snow surface
loose dry snow, odd since it was so warm.
In some places below 2,000ft there was evidence of a mild wind crust, but not much. Above 2,500, in Hippy Bowl, it looked very scoured.
Snow left on branches throughout Tincan trees, evidence of almost no wind.
Snowpack
We dug a pit at 2,222ft on a NW aspect with a 32deg slope.
depth of snow 33cm
20 cm of old loose dry facets at the bottom, fist hard, then a 2-5mm brittle crust, then 13cm of new snow, 4 finger hard.
CT 1 and ECTP 2, both within the old loose facets near ground. The "propagation" felt more like extended collapse than a true energetic propagation. We did not witness any shooting cracks during our tour, ski cuts were non-productive, and whumphing was minimal and small in size. The snowpack in this area is very weak, but does not seem to be harboring any energy.
ECTP2, snowpack was MUCH thinner than we expected after this storm
CT1 and ECTP2 failed within the old loose facets at the ground
the top few hundred feet skied OK, before we hit the brush line. Note snow was not blown off tree branches.