Winner Creek

February has been a crazy month so far for storm snow.  Alyeska Resort has received 204" of new snow since the first of the month.  Get out the shovels, because another 8-12" is expected today.

On Saturday, Matt & Agnes rallied for their first BC outing since returning from NZ and Mitch rounded out the group.  We decided on the long slog out to the snowcat terrain past Winner Creek.  We made quick time on the cat track and met the large group of clients as we reached the base of Notch Mountain.  Every single one of them had some type of GoPro camera attached to various parts of their body.

Speaking of GoPro's, I put together this quick edit of the fantastic powder skiing.



And it's been a rough year for the lower 48 and avalanche deaths.  4 people were killed yesterday in two separate incidents at Stevens and Snoqualmie passes.  Girdwood native and freeskier Elyse Saugstad was one of the group members caught and carried.  6 people have been killed in Colorado this year.

Also interesting to note that she was wearing an ABS Avalanche Airbag Backpack.  Recent videos of an incident in Colorado of a BCA Float 30 avalanche airbag that went "viral".  Thoughts and prayers go out to all of the families.

Stay safe and enjoy all of the white stuff!

mlj

South Fork Conditions Update

This November has been off to a good start, with over a foot of fresh snow in the past week.  Not to mention the decent start in October; but I've already got 3 1/2 foot snow banks in my driveway.

I headed out to the South Fork tonight for a quick after work "one run and done" conditions check.  I really didn't pay attention to the weather gauge, but there must have been some wind that came in with the recent storm.  By my calibrated eye, there was about 4" of new low density snow in the parking lot at the trailhead.  I could see the wind was transporting snow on the ridge tops, specifically Harp and some of the ridges deeper up valley.

I observed a small natural slide on the top of Lynx that had been obviously wind loaded.  There was a large party that had skied the main gut of Harp proper and it "looked" really good.  I would be leery and untrusting of ridgetops and gullies that had been scoured - play it safe!

Here are some GoPro pics.  They really don't do any type of justice, but better than nothing.

 And of course LB getting hers...

In celebration of Veteran's Day, i'll be out getting some turns.  Hopefully i'll have an update of how things flushed out after the "mega storm".

In other news, Matt Hage is getting stoked.