Cross Hill/Gold Cord

Folks have been stepping out into large, consequential terrain and slope testing following February snow and wind events. It has been multiple weeks since we have had a human-triggered persistent slab avalanche, and the most recent avalanches have been soft, wind slab avalanches triggered immediately after loading events. 

We are entering a period of cold, high-pressure with good stability and strength in our snowpack, despite the poor structure. Faceting of our upper snowpack should improve surface conditions for touring. Outside of some isolated, previously wind-loaded steep and extreme terrain where you could still trigger a small persistent slab avalanche, we have seen things trend quiet in Hatcher Pass. 

As pointed out in the video, low danger doesn't mean "no danger." See "Persistent Slab". 

No signs of instability on this tour. See "Snowpack" for more information.

Snow surfaces varied from firm, supportive sastrugi, smooth windboard to brittle, breakable crusts and punchy or wind drifted powder. Even firm surfaces showed initial signs of faceting, though true windward slopes were firm and slick for skinning. Pole probing and hand pits indicated a strong, firm upper snowpack with widespread thick (1F to P), bridging wind slabs 20-50cm thick being fairly widespread. These old wind slabs were unreactive on test slopes and hard to shear in hand pits. The bottom of the snowpack remains ~20cm of large, developed depth hoar and faceted grains. 

Snowpack showed strength and stability, albeit with our continuing poor structure. Even in a shallower (75-85cm), previously cross-loaded slope on a SE aspect of Gold Cord at 4,300' had stubborn results: ECTP28 and ECTP29 at 50cm from the ground where small .5mm facets sat over and old, buried P hard wind slab (see photo and video).