The radness has finally arrived to the Talkeetna mountains. Given, this radness came with 60mph gusts, weird brown skies thrusday morning, and a general crabby feeling from people at work that winter had returned. I couldn’t have been more pleased. Thursday’s storm was just the precipitation icing on the cake, as the storm earlier in the week, the one that barely dribbled two sloppy inches in town, dropped about eight inches of cold, dry, powder in high elevations. After a failed attempt to ski the horrendously rotten snow in low elevations on tuesday, Brian and I were handsomely rewarded (not because of the snow, but because, shit, we’re handsome skier dudes) with cold smoke, crisp, clear skies, and barely a hint of wind. I haven’t gotten to ski with Brian as much as we had planned this winter, and when we did make it happen, our personalities weren’t always meshing how ski partner’s should. For some reason, maybe it was the spring sun, the new snow, or the fact that our skiing finally clicked, Bran and I were able to catch 3 laps off Bennet Ridge and Hatch Common, all to ourselves, with not another skier in sight. We skied pretty much till the sun set, making our last turns in the waning soft light of an April evening. The imminent storm of the year was coming in, with the dwindling bluebird being ever so slowly pushed out by high altitude cirrus clouds. As we skied down, the only indicator of the weather to come were those high clouds providing, one of the most beautiful and omnipresent winter sundogs I’ve ever seen, stretching from Bald Mountain Ridge to Lucky Shot Ridge. We got back to the car at 8:30pm, sighing in that exasperated euphoria that only backcountry skiers know, high fived, and drove home for a beer. I love spring.
As thursday morning came, I awoke in the morning to the sound of our recently placed wind chimes going nuts in the storm breeze. Wind, precip, and gray skies? What the shit? We’re used to those superbly clear wind events here in Palmer, only disturbed by the occasional saharan-esque dust cloud tearing ass down the Matanuska flood plain. This was different. As I drove to work, the sky litterally looked brown, the storm clouds and weather event not meshing well with the intense spring light above it. Zander texted me, going nuts at the radar image, which according to him, was reminiscent of the “perfect storm” scenario. Willow and Talkeetna were getting puked on, with up to 20 inches forecasted yesterday. Could that make it to the pass? I wasn’t initially planning on even skiing yesterday, and the wind, which I had to lean in to like a sailor crossing the pacific, was not motivating me for a tour. As things went through the day, I began to get ancy and wonder…what’s going on at the pass? I kept thinking, “I think the Marmot Station is broken.” It was measuring paltry 20mph gusts. “Twenty mph? That couldn’t be right! Not at all!” When Z called and egged me on to get out of work early, I coudln’t pass it up. I hadn’t skied with the guy in almost two weeks, and our last session had me creeped out on Cornbiscuit. We met Gabe and Ben up at the pass, in a snowstorm which I hadn’t seen the likes of since October 2008 (That’s a realization I have to credit to Leo from teletips).
According to Ben and Gabe, who were driving down from an earlier tour, we were literally 10 seconds behind the plow (which we couldn’t see by the way). The snow was coming in sideways, blowing large drifts into the pass road. Gabe & Ben were game for another tour, as they had only made it to the 16 Mile lot, done a road run, hitched up, and simply toured up the road a ways (the paved road). Their report was full on whiteout, with large wind drifts piling in the road, making spots nearly impassable. I think they made the right choice in not attempting to go any higher on any slope. We opted for a lower gov tour, which, I have to be honest, was not getting me pumped. My tuesday tour with B Kramp was horrible, and it still didn’t seem like THAT much snow had fallen down low. Well, I was wrong. Very Wrong. Tarnation, I was wrong! The wind was blowing sideways, depositing what seemed like 8-12 new inches into large deep pillows in the meadows. The new snow was doing it’s best to remind us of how good these lower elevations can be, when the vegetation actually gets laid down. It’s like the Talkeetna’s were trying to say….”No. I’m not going to to go out like a chump this year! “Not again.” We found over a foot of fresh in places, with windblown pockets being even deeper. It was difficult to film, because the huge, spindly, snowflakes just kept blowing on to my lens. We made it work.
Before I sign off on this update. I want to thank everyone who has been giving me support for doing this website. It’s been super encouraging to hear from you all, and to know that you take the time to read the words of someone who is, basically, spouting off their personal thoughts. It does not go unappreciated. I haven’t been conducting a lot of snowpack updates because, being at work for the summer season, I’m just not out at the pass as frequently. Before I give a quick condition update, I want to remind everyone, who IS interested in detailed snow condition updates, to keep on visiting Jed & Allie’s Hatcher Snowpack blog. These guys know what’s up, and they do a great job, and are using the snowpilot program for easy references to snowpits. They can’t always be up there, and neither can I, so send us your observations, because, the more info the community has, the better. It doesn’t need to be a bunch of numbers, just well thought out info that makes sense.
As for conditions, the pit that Brian dug on sunny wednesday evening, was about 120cm down into the facets, which means the north slopes are holding much deeper snow. I don’t have all the info and numbers, but suffice it to say, our column tests showed Hard failures, with low energy (CTH23, Q3). Brian didn’t even notice the failure, and I had to stop him, because I saw it from the side. Our pit matched the data that Jed, Allie, and Eva have been finding in snow pits. That is, there WAS low probability of large slab avalanches, but if a slab popped, it would be high consequence, which was the case with the slide a few weeks ago.  Brian and I saw only one slab avalanche on wendesay, on a NNE aspect, between two rock columns, it was a small class one that pretty much went nowhere. As I said, the danger WAS low, as in past tense, but with the new, heavier snow, and lots of wind, I bet we can count on some signs of avy activity when the weather clears. The nice snow from wednesday was on top of a very strong slab. Under that slab….are horrible, well defined, depth hoar crystals. The question is, how well is the underlying strong slab handling the new snow weight? There’s a lot of new, somewhat dense snow that fell yesterday on top of light, cold, sloughing powder. It’s deep for once, but have fun and be safe out there!
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