Seasonal Lull

Hi there, things here are moving along. Busy and chaotic as normal, but not real exciting since all the summer stuff is over and we're waiting for winter to get into full swing. We do have some snow on the ground, though not more than a few inches, and it has been plenty cold. There was definitely no global warming in AK this year! After the third coldest summer ever and the 7th coldest October, I have high hopes for an epic winter with lots of snow and very few of the freeze melt cycles. We'll see what happens I guess.

There is however quite a bit of snow in the mtns already. On Thursday I went down to Turnagain Pass to backcountry ski with some buddies. Overnight it had snowed 12-18 inches so we expected the avalanche danger to be pretty high..... and we weren't disappointed! It was a beautiful day and we spent about 3 hours hiking about 2000 vertical feet up a ridgeline to get to the stuff we intended to ski. It was a ton of work as we were breaking trail through 18-20 inches of snow, and deeper in places were the wind had been blowing. About 2/3 of the way to the top we started to see shooting cracks in the snow and we could hear the snowpack go 'whoomph' as the weak layer in it would collapse and the snow would settle. Those are 2 surefire signs of unstable snow and high avalanche danger so we stopped right there and made plans to ski down a slope of less than 30 degrees. This is because 30 or less is not steep enough for an avalanche. Unfortunately it also wasn't steep enough for fun skiing, when the snow is that deep you need steep slopes or else you stop everytime you turn. Anyhow, the new guy in our group went first and about halfway down he got too close to a steep slope and sure enough he trigger a small to medium sized avalanche. He wasn't caught and simply turned away. But it sure demonstrated how fine the line is between a safe slope and a dangerous one. However it was a great day, in that I got to use all my skills I learned last year and find out that they do actually work. And that I was able to accurately identify the hazard and make the right decision.

The only bummer was 3+ hours of climbing for not much good skiing, but what the heck it was a great workout and a gorgeous day.

The pictures are of my buddy Phil, almost dying from exertion, but in the background you can see way down to the highway which is where we started our trek. The other photos show the avalanche and our tracks. Too bad it was so unstable because skiing some of those other slopes you see would've been awesome!! Take Care, Storm