Lutak

Mt. Ripinsky, 2500ft. Snow quality is excellent on shaded aspects protected from the north winds. Surface is facetted leftover pow. Ice crust underneath impenetrable. Bonding between the ice crust and pow on top was strong. No recent avalanches or danger signs observed. Note: in windy alpine areas, 5-30cm thick wind slab at top of snowpack. Seemed pretty dense and bonded in this location. That said, thinner alpine areas appeared to be wind loaded over old facets, so caution advised above treeline.. Originally posted by Erik Stevens on alaskasnow.org

great snow conditions although increasing loading and continued touchiness kept us in mellow terrain all day. Found 20-25cm of F new snow, more in wind favoured gullies and depressions to a maximum of 50cm. Hand shears have easily and revealed reactive layers within the storm snow. Underlaying the new snow is a layer of 15-20 cm of 4f decomposing forms and small facets. Under that layer is a marked transition to 2-3mm large grain F hardness facets interspersed with the final remanants of a few crusts. Made note of 3 naturally triggered avalanches, all presumed running at the interface between the new snow and the decomposing forms beneath on a thin layer of buried near surface facets. N-NE aspects, crown 20-50cm, sz2, above 2000ft within the last 18 hours. The one we were able to observe closely had massive cracks radiating from the crown 70-80 feet, showing impressive propagation. originally posted by Johnny Bomber on alaskasnow.org

Lutak Zone: 2,500ft E-NE 22F sunny calm. A delayed settlement in a meadow after snack and water. Felt and watched the snowpack drop 3 inches. Whumphs throughout the tour in meadows and around trees. Dense powder to wind pack to facets. Freaky-slab made us abandon any efforts of skiing a steeper slope. Look for the slab in any steep open terrain, even in the trees. Originally posted by Jeff Muskowitz on avalanchesnow.org

Sketchy weekend! Lutak zone, Saturday and Sunday: widespread whumping from 2000' to 4000'. Observed recent activity: SS-N-D2-R3-O [NE aspect, 2800ft, 33 degrees, 45cm deep x 40m wide, ran on 3mm facets above the ice crust, see photo1]. Widespread natural D2 slides on NW, N and SE aspects around 3500ft. 30-45cm deep. Slopes 32-40 degrees. Ski cut result on E aspect at 3500ft, 40 degree slope: [ SS-ARc-D2-R2-O, see photo2] ran on facet layer above ice crust. Note, thick facet layer remained on slope and could probably re-load and re-avalanche. Originally posted by Erik Stevens on avalanchesnow.org

Observations from doing the Koot to Kat adventure race (roughly North to South up and over Ripinski). Found good snow in open trees on NE aspect, up to maybe 650m. Snow was a few days old, but still very light and unconsolidated. Depth varied from 5cm to 20cm+, increasing with elevation. This was on a very hard midpack (couldn't punch a pole through). Higher up, the snow depth increased to maybe 45cm, but felt much more settled and wind affected, many areas had soft to hard wind slab on top. Might have been possible to find good lines regardless. I assume the riding quality would have been good to very good (my race partner didn't want to stop and verify...) Hopefully someone gets back out there to shred that powder before it's gone! For what it's worth, higher up was very wind affected. The alpine and down to below treeline was windy and mostly a mix of hard wind slabs, icy crust and rime/iced up sastrugis. Crampons were required to hike down through the trees. Fun day nonetheless!!