Detailed Observation

Date2022-02-20
LocationEastern Alaska Range
ObserverHank Statscewich
AvalancheN

General Observations

Skied up into the upper Look Eyrie Basin today. All of the new snow made trail breaking quite arduous. Crossed debris from at least 3 major slides in the Red Rock Canyon. Dug a pit at about 5,500′ near top of the glacier lookers right of the Eyrie. Submerged my 240 cm probe, then dug out a pit 200 cm deep and proceeded to plunge my probe to the hilt with no sign of touching the glacier underneath. The snowtel at Look Eyrie Basin is reporting 240 cm, I guess that the glacier is holding onto a lot more snow. No sign of the December rain crust in the upper glacier snowpack. My Extended Column Test showed a clear shear at 15 taps with the 20 cm thick surface layer sliding on a buried wind crust. Below that surface layer, there were two additional layers that only broke away after 30 taps and some shovel wedging. Heard one ominous whoomph as I skinned from freshly deposited snow onto an obvious wind slab at a low angle. Yellow light conditions made for low angle glacier pow skiing al the way back to valley floor.

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