Quick report
Conditions are good and Hatcher Pass shows it: lots of tracks on skiable/rideable terrain throughout the forecast area. With temperatures staying cooler, we have been fortunate: the 6" in 5 weeks is stretching a little longer and has not substantially warmed up or gotten wind transported...yet. Stay tuned and pay attention as Spring keeps rolling for shifts: pay attention to overnight temperatures and daytime surface conditions. Otherwise, enjoy, pay attention to your sluff and uphill/downhill traffic (especially in tight, extreme terrain) and use normal caution while touring in the backcountry.
We did not experience red flag signs of warming or significant wind transport where we were. While we saw some fresh wind affected snow surfaces at ridgeline, none of these demonstrated signs of instability (whumphing, collapsing, shooting cracks).Weather
- Air Temp
- 30
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Wind Loading
- light
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
Skies were mostly clear with some clouds to the south. Real versus perceived temperatures were While air temperatures crept into the 40s at Archangel, snow surfaces above 3,000' stayed dry and soft, below, we experienced some mild signs of warming but no glopping, wet snow or new point releases observed (see instability/snowpack section). Moderate gusts out of the Northeast were observed transporting small amounts of snow. These gusts were intermittent and we did not observe significant slab formation on lee aspects as we saw pluming and snow transport occurring. By 1400, experienced winds were back to light.
Snowpack
Snow surfaces were generally soft, dry and light underfoot, especially on more easterly aspects. Subtle wind affected snow was observable at ridgeline, though we did still experience soft snow from the recent one day storm even on wind exposed areas. We observed more substantial crusts on more southerly aspects at mid elevations (2,500-3,500').
Avalanche
Several dry loose small sluffs were observed in and around ski tracks (see photo). A few small wet loose point releases on solar aspects near rocks from the last few days were observed.