Moody 5-Mile

The weather didn’t give us much of a break for our first field day in the Haines Pass, so we settled into a tree tour at 5-Mile—an area that’s seen plenty of traffic lately. We started skinning during a brief lull, but strong north winds cranked up by mid-day. About 5–10 cm of storm snow is sitting on a stout-to-breakable crust, softening as you climb. We topped out around upper treeline thanks to the wind. On the way down, we noticed some shooting cracks below our boards on steeper slopes and convexities. There isn’t much snow available to move right now, but that storm-snow-on-crust interface is weak—and something we’ll definitely be thinking about if this storm produces significant accumulation through the weak.