Winter is Still Here...

Thank you Mother Nature for the Front Range refresh!  Two minor storms dumped about 6 inches of spring powder and reset the brutally wind hammered western Chugach.  Spring really hasn't sprung yet, and places south of Anchorage are currently on the receiving end of the fire hose.

The deteriorating snow conditions allowed me to make good use of my Level II skills and geeked out in some snow pits on Harp and Tincan before having to go back to work.  109 days off - but now I don't have to shave everyday and I get to pick out what I wear each morning.

B-real and I refilled the stoke tank with an apres-work ski outing to Hiland Road.  There was a small wind event that gave us just enough trouble on the uptrack to be spooked.  Some fat and bulbous pockets of soft slab were noted, with whumping above slope, underfoot, and down slope.  It took some careful and conservative route finding. 

But we finally found what we were looking for.

 Straight line distance to Anchortown - 14.37 miles!

 Me and LB enjoying April cold smoke.

We caught the perfect soft light weather window.  There is a "mega-storm" wreaking havoc in Alaska right now.  This monster will hopefully prolong our ski season.

And finally, a ski guide was caught in an avalanche which resulted in a full burial yesterday afternoon while conducting snow assessment.  Good job on the rescue!  Read the report in today's advisory.

Front Range Powder...

It seems like I never get to use the post title "Front Range Powder".  Something like "Snowed a little bit, and the wind took it away" would be more appropriate for our Anchorage bowl powder explorations.  But these last two small storm systems dropped some very nice low density snow.  Old Man Wind didn't blow everything away, but deposited the snow in gullies.  Eric, B-real and I pretty much skied out the main Harp/Two Bowl drainage.

Eric and Stella sniff out the dry powder.

B-real enjoying the untracked experience.

Yours truly milking my own turns from the day prior.

It was so good, we skied this drainage three days in a row.  Despite the stellar skiing, we did find some widespread instabilities.  Many E-NE aspects that became windloaded during the storm were ripping out remotely.  These occurred on steeper slopes (30+).  While skinning up the lookers left Harp bowl, the entire slope settled ("whoomped") below us.  We saw shooting cracks and fractures in the gully.  Had this slope been steeper, the entire gully would've ripped out.  I had an immediate desire to go and enjoy the beer in the back of my truck.

But we did enjoy some turns in the nice south facing slopes.

 Lobita enjoying the down.

On Saturday, I participated in the Observer Training sponsored by the CNFAIC.  Avalanche Forecasters Kevin Wright and Wendy Wagner took a group of 7 skiers up to Tincan.  Their goal is to empower the public to submit quality snow observations and make their job of forecasting better and more realistic.  These guys did a phenomenal job and have some amazing knowledge of snow science and avalanche hazard and recognition.  We dug a crew served fighting position (AKA snow pit) and talked a bit about the snowpack in Turnagain Pass.  Although our stability tests showed very good results, the deep-slab instabilities that exist will certainly keep me off of steep terrain with high consequences.  Todays forecast certainly shows what spatial variability and a thin snowpack in certain places will do.

Drawing our sector sketches and going over the rest plan.

Quote I heard while doing a Compression Test: "Ski it if it's white!"