Turnagain Pass and Girdwood

The avalanche danger is low at all elevations. The long spell of cold, clear weather with little wind has made human-triggered avalanches unlikely. Isolated pockets of wind-hardened snow sitting on top of weak sugary snow could produce a small outlier avalanche in steep alpine terrain. Glide avalanches have slowed down, but we still recommend minimizing time underneath glide cracks.

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Recent Avalanches: It's been 10 days since a group of skiers triggered 3 wind slabs remotely in Seattle Creek drainage near Big Chief. 

Due to the lack of snowfall, significant wind events, or human-triggered avalanches in well over a week in the Turnagain Pass area, we are dropping the danger to low. There are still some weak layers in the snowpack, but triggering an avalanche on these weak layers with our current setup is unlikely. However, low danger doesn't mean no danger. Isolated pockets of wind-hardened snow sitting on top of weak sugary facets could still cause small human-triggered avalanches about 1' deep in steep alpine terrain. We always recommend sticking to safe travel practices by travelling one at a time in avalanche terrain and spotting your partners to hedge your bets against finding one of these outlier avalanches. 

The main hazard today is the cold temperatures, wind, and highly variable surface conditions. Andrew went out to Tincan yesterday to verify we could drop to low danger and said the skiing conditions were terrible (and he is one of the most optimistic ski conditions reporters I know). At low elevations, there are a variety of icy surfaces and crusts. At upper elevations, the wind has formed highly variable wind crusts that make skiing quite challenging. 

Glide Avalanches: The cycle of glide avalanches has been very active throughout the season so far, but in the past week the activity seems to have slowed down significantly. Despite this encouraging trend, we always recommend identifying glide cracks and trying to minimize your time spent underneath them to avoid these potentially large and destructive avalanches.