Dogsled Valley, Archangel

Looking to get out of the wind, we jumped on the snowmachines and rode to the west side of the pass and out to Dogsled Valley. While the sun was out and the winds were light, some recent wind effects were evident in the scalloped slopes and a few small, recent natural wind slabs. We climbed up onto the base of a southeast aspect and found soft snow and decided to climb higher. On the ascent, we quickly encountered a shallow, breakable wind crust and soon after began triggering small collapses in the new slabs. While these lacked much depth and energy, the terrain we'd chosen would have only exposed us to more and larger wind effects, so we decided to call it a run and descend. On the descent, we triggered another small, shallow wind slab failing on old faceted snow. 

Not willing to call it a day, we decided to return to the pass and travel into Archangel to get a feel for coverage and wind effect. While the snow in Archangel was much less wind-affected, the coverage overall seemed much thinner than on the west side of the pass. We found a perch and had lunch with good viewing of several parties that came into the valley to high mark into very steep, rocky, and extreme terrain. A few of the parties reported triggering a number of small, shallow wind slabs, but everyone was in agreement that the rocks and low coverage provided more of a hazard than the shallow, reactive wind slabs. 

Wind was actively transporting snow along ridgelines and across slopes at upper elevations near the roadway and throughout the southern part of the forecast area. Farther north and west, the wind was less apparent, but evidence of it's effect was still apparent. Eroded and scalloped slopes were evident on numerous aspects, and small, shallow naturals were also observed. These all appeared to be less than a foot deep new wind slabs failing on our previously faceted surface.