Fairangel Valley

If you came to State of the Snowpack last night we covered a few silver linings of our stale, drought conditions. A period of cold, calm and clear weather has enabled previously wind hammered surfaces to loosen up, and a meager 4" of snow that came in with some light winds was not enough to up the hazard outside of a few isolated pockets of soft slab instability last week that have trended quiet. This tour was another piece of data that above 3,500' the settled conditions, while variable, can provide some decent backcountry skiing and snowmachining.

Rocks and shallow obstacles remain a hazard (look out for literal holes in Fairangel...there were a few that were more than a body-length deep!), and small dry loose sluffs were the main concern. Additional hazards would be slips and falls while in steep terrain where new snow sits over stout, slick, winded surfaces below. 

There is still snow out there for transport and while light winds continue to be predicted, do not be surprised if ridgetop winds pick up and move snow, building new slabs. Otherwise, enjoy the calm, settled conditions and pay attention as we shift to warmer temperatures and longer days for more typical Alaskan springtime snowpack hazards. 

We saw several small, natural, dry loose avalanches in steep terrain above 35* at the base of ESE rocks, a northerly shoulder of Pinnacle, and a few small southerly point releases. Most of these were shallow at less than 4" in depth and ran on uniform bed surface. The largest appeared to entrain loose, faceted snow below recent 3/7 snow. We were able to get a few little dry loose sluffs to move on slick, firm old wind slab but none of these picked up speed and grew in size (see photo). Stable snowpack conditions observed today with virtually no wind effect noticed outside of a few weak, brittle, and thin wind-kissed surfaces on E aspects.

Dry upper snowpack had about 4"/10cm of new snow that was either over stiff and supportive wind board or intermittent loose, dry facets on more ENE terrain. Snow was consistently the "deepest" in feel on lower angle pitches. 

Pole probing revealed that lower snowpack depth hoar and basal facets have gained some cohesion. They are definitely still down there, but on pole tests, the "ground fell out" less than previous weeks, and the mid and snowpack had some body and hardness to it. 

As noted previously, we were able to kick off a few small, inconsequential loose dry sluffs, mostly on our slower uptracks when we were breaking trail at the interface of new snow over stiff and slick wind board. 

No cracking and collapsing, even in mildly wind-kissed features. Areas that did receive a little bit of wind in the post 3/7 4" snow event were less than fist hard, faceted and unreactive.