Observation: Hatcher Pass

Location: Two-Mile Creek-Near Gold Mint

Date:
Observer:
Route & General Observations

Started at Gold Mint parking lot at 10:30am, walked down gold mint trail for two miles and turned right into the two-mile creek zone just past delia creek to check out northern aspects and to do full profile pit tests.

Red Flags
Red flags are simple visual clues that are a sign of potential avalanche danger. Please record any sign of red flags below.
Observer Comments

Only potential red flags observed was some pretty fast warming from the morning to the afternoon (~20°F increase), and a maybe recent, small dry loose avalanche on only northern aspects, pics below; observed two other similar looking avalanches on same aspect. Unsure of age, pretty certain of them being naturally triggered.

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

@ 10:12am at Gold Mint Lot
Winds: Calm, gusting Light from the SE
Sky: Clear
Temps: -6°C
Precip: NO
@ 13:00 at pit location
Elevation: 2570'
Winds: Calm, SE
Sky: Clear increasing to Few by 15:00
Temps: -8°C
Precip: NO
@ 15:30 at Gold Mint Lot
Winds: Calm, SE
Sky: Broken, slowly increasing
Temps: 0°C
Precip: NO

Snow surface

In the morning snow surface was 3-4cm of dry new snow on all aspects over a melt-freeze crust varying from ~7cm supportable on solar aspects and ~4cm breakable on all other aspects. By 14:30, warming temps and aggressive sun affect caused snow surface on observed solar aspects to be so that the top 3-4cm of new snow to become moist, and for the melt-freeze crust to become wet and to start melting.

Snowpack

Pits dug on a N aspect at 2570' at 13:00; pit profile and test results below
TL;DR
HS: 160cm
Shovel Tilt Test, Moderate effort, Q1, 8cm down from snow surface, failed on new/old interface
ECTX
CT22, Q3, 26cm down from snow surface

Photos & Video
Please upload photos below. Maximum of 5 megabytes per image. Click here for help on resizing images. If you are having trouble uploading please email images separately to staff.