Bulletin d’avalanche

Summit Lake

Chugach National Forest Avalanche Center
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Danger d’avalanche

Mon
Alpin
2 · Modéré
Limite forestière
2 · Modéré
Sous la limite
1 · Faible
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Périmé — ce bulletin a expiré 2 years ago. Vous consultez des conditions passées, pas le bulletin en cours.

Points saillants

The main concern in the Summit Lake area is triggering a large avalanche failing on weak snow buried 2 to 6' deep in the bottom half of the snowpack. The most likely places to run into trouble will be steep terrain with a thinner snowpack. This type of problem is hard to assess and can give misleading feedback. Take the time to carefully evaluate the snowpack before committing to steep slopes, and consider avoiding the bigger terrain for now while the weak layers gain strength.

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SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS:

The Avalanche Rescue Workshop at Glen Alps has been POSTPONED to Sunday, February 9th.  The workshop is 100% free of charge and all experience levels are welcome. Click HERE for more information.

We're on a brewery tour next week! Come out for two free evenings of conversations about the world of snow and avalanches:

  • State of the Snowpack talk - Tuesday, February 4th, 6-7pm at Onsight Brewing in Anchorage. Join Dr. John Sykes and Mary Gianotti for a night of snowpack discussion at a new venue! More details HERE. 
  • Forecaster Chat - Thursday, February 6th, 6-7:30 p.m. at Girdwood Brewing Co. in Girdwood. Andrew Schauer will discuss recent CNFAC research and highlight ways it can help your backcountry game. Details HERE.

Problèmes avalancheux

  • Deep Persistent Slabs

    • Alpin
    • Limite forestière
    • Sous la limite forestière
    Probabilité
    Possible
    Taille
    2–3.5

    We are in a bit of a status quo mindset for the Summit Lake area. Deeply buried weak layers are slowly gaining strength, but are still capable of producing very large avalanches. As these layers become more stubborn they also become more challenging to assess. We've been tracking several layers of faceted snow, including one right at the bottom of the snowpack, multiple layers around melt/freeze crusts that formed during the series of warm storms in December and January, and some lingering surface hoar layers that also formed during the same time frame. These all exist within the lower 1 to 2 feet of the snowpack in most locations, and seem to be equally reactive (or stubborn, depending on how you look at it).

    We saw large avalanches failing on these weak layers during the previous two storm events, and it still seems the weight of a person could trigger a big avalanche in just the right spot today. It can be really hard to know for sure if this snowpack will make an avalanche on a specific slope. It is unlikely you will experience collapsing or cracking even if conditions are dangerous, and stability tests will likely give mixed results. Keep all of this in mind as you travel today, and consider waiting on the bigger objectives while the snowpack continues to heal. With quiet weather in the forecast for the foreseeable future, we are expecting a trend of improving stability this week.

    Cornices: There are many large cornices that will begin to heat up during the temperature inversion that is settling in this week. These often catch people by surprise, breaking back much further from the edge than we'd expect. Keep that in mind if you are traveling along ridgelines, and be sure to limit spending time under them since they can release naturally.

    Glide avalanches: Glide cracks continue to pop open throughout our forecast areas. We are only aware of one that has released so far, but more are appearing every day. These avalanches are very large and unpredictable. The best way to manage this problem is to avoid spending time under open glide cracks.

    (2/1/2025)

    We're expecting another beautiful day today, but there are potentially dangerous weak layers lurking below the surface in the Summit Lake zone.

    Photo: Arnav

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