HatchYourTrax

“It’s not even December.”  Hell, “It’s not even Thanksgiving yet.”  I keep telling myself this, encouraging my thoughts of the snowpack to take a positive note, because I’ve been hearing a lot of sighs and exasperation about the snow out there, myself included.  The reality of the situation, is that we’re still super early in Winter, and many places in Hatcher are holding 90cm of snow or more.  Sure, there are bare spots, but damn, 90cm is a good base, especially considering the recent three day wind event.  When I returned from Panama, I was expecting total rocky cheesegrader, and instead I found bottomless pow and filled in lines.  Wind comes, and wind goes…so does snow.  We will get more snow, and when we do, get up and get after it.  The same for the wind…It will be back.

Following one of the coldest tours I’ve been on for some time (Friday), we headed out Sunday with no clear objective in mind.  Knowing how tricky reading the snow would be, we opted to head deep into Fishhook valley.  Perhaps the wind hadn’t blasted the upper reaches sheltered by the towering slabs of Granite mountain and Independence Peak.  While there were small pockets of good snow, it was extremely difficult to anticipate where a wind slab and wind buff began.  There was sustrugi pow and sustrugi windslab.  We never found that elusive line holding the pow.  Not on the north, south, east, or west aspects.  Given, some aspects have better conditions than others, but I still wouldn’t call it great skiing. I don’t have the picture of it, but someone literally traversed the entire upper 1/4 of the slope from Hatch Peak down the entire length of Bald Ridge.  Sounds fun!

When mellow turns and a long tour are on tap for the day, I often end up being extremely surprised by how much fun I’m having.  Sometimes you just need to take it all in, to remind yourself that…this place is AMAZING. I mean, truly, it sounds doofy, but no eloquent prose or written form, nor photo or video, can accurately describe the presence, energy, and awesome experience that is touring through Hatcher Pass.  We spent the afternoon eying lines for the future, making mental notes on routes and safety zones, and touring through massive boulder fields sitting below gigantic granite slabs.  While some folks were wallowing in the epic conditions on Marmot, deep in the valley, Erin and I skied a 300′ apron while Jared and Kimbrough attempted to make it to Indy Gap but lost the light and the motivation to go higher. All in all, it was a pretty great little Sunday; a Sunday touring with great friends.  In my eyes, Hatcher totally delivered the goods.

GET LOW!

In weather news, it looks like we’ll be getting a small refresh tonight, but along with that, the valley will be getting winds into the 30mph range.  I’m interested to see how the snow piles up at the pass.  Following the storm it’s supposed to stay cold and breezy. The current snowpack is strong, but with new snow and windloading, our avalanche danger will definitely increase.  In our present case, the top layer of the snowpack ranges from breakable to bomb proof wind slab, to areas of small, albeit deep wind deposited light snow.  Pretty much, there’s no uniformity on top.  Under those slabs, lies less dense and even faceted snow, sitting atop a more uniform layer of consolidated snow,

I’ll try and head up tomorrow afternoon to see what the storm brings and keep everyone posted.  As always, keep checking HPAC for detailed observations and updates.  Turnagin, Kenai and the western sound are in a Blizzard Warning, with gusts up to 65mph near Whitter and a forecasted storm total of 17″ in town.  That opening day at Alyeska could be great (if you have a pass).  It’s about time we finally  get a low that pushed back on the intense high pressure sitting in the interior.

Hap has a crappy view from his windows

Well, it’s about as bad as you think it is out there.  Cold, wind blasted, and not the most exciting skiing.  Jed at HPAC did a really great job of describing the carnage as of November 16th…that was Thursday.  E. J. and I headed up to the pass Friday morning to see what we could find…and it wasn’t too pretty.

The three day wind event had ravaged the peaks and ridgelines, blowing away a good portion of the snow and revealing empty exposed ridges.  Much of the snow was pulverized, and even usually protected fishhook valley was whipped into long lines of sastrugi and windlsab.  Erin and I headed to the SW facing, lower rollovers just below microdot, and dug a couple of pits and compression test.  The results were very similar to what Jed found. The snowpack is showing strength.  Our columns were 102cm deep with hard failures at CT23 for the first column, and CT22 for the next.  The columns didn’t shear clean, with q3 results in two locations 63 and 85 cm from the ground.  We couldn’t get the whole column to fail within the parameters of the test. The failures happened at the new/old snow interface from last week’s storm, and in areas where more wet, dense snow was deposited as it warmed from 11 degrees to 25 in one day during the last storm.

Below, I’ve included a snow pilot result graph from Jed at HPAC.  I’ve started messing around with this program, and it’s pretty easy to use.  If you’re out, digging around in the snow, and recording your results, send them over to Jed@hatcherpassavalanchecenter.org. The more data we can collect the better our local forecasting and reporting can be.  You can find the  Snow Pilot program here.

Courtesy of Jed Workman (HPAC)

It’s great the snowpack has decent strength, it’s unfortunate the layer you would be “skiing” is crap.  There’s some pockets of deposited wind buff, but it’s not very uniform.  Some of the north facing lines looked like they were holding, but then again, without sunlight on the snow I couldn’t be too sure.  Bottom line is…we need more snow.

Maybe some goods in there?  Maybe?

Wow, what a week.  Get back from Panama.  Ski deep pow.  HYT site gets hacked.  Crazy storm snow.  More skiing.  Website unhacked.  Skies clear…Epic November at Hatcher.  After five days of heavy dumping and whiteout conditions at the pass, the weather gods decided to grace us with blue skies on Sunday afternoon.

Seeing that it was still graybird, we committed to meadow skipping, and avoided the high alpine.  While there was amazing coverage down low for November, we were getting consistent whoomping and collapsing of the snowpack.  We lapped up the meadows in the afternoon twilight, that soft glowing amber that you only see in early Alaskan winters.  We were hooting and hollering, having a blast as we party skied the slopes. Check the vid below…it’s not a piece of art, but it’ll do if you like local yokels skiing in the hills.

We drove to the top to take a look sunday evening, and were suprised to see some folks getting after it.  The wind was pluming snow off Bald Mountain Ridge, 4068 and Skyscraper…things looked to be getting funky. Considering the wind & temp changes from the storm, as well as constant whoomping, I was pleased with our day. Still, you get that, “shoulda gone there” urge when you see those lines that could have been yours.  Some folks lapped it up on lower Presidents and a few bootpackers wallowd their tired asses up Marmot.  Took them over 4 hours to reach the first false summit.  Respect.

Shooting crack 1..2..3

Being the ski bum that I am, I ran some errands and made it up to the mountains around one today.  The wind had worked thousand dollar run and Hatch Peak, ripping from the NW out over the exposed ridges on it’s way out of the fishook and little su drainages.  The standard uptrack of marmot, the south face, was riddled with 4-6″ windslabs and areas of rotten, exposed facets only 18″ from the ground.  I ran into a fellow workday traveler, and we toured up the ridge together, gaining the summit of Fish around three pm.  The first west shots down the face of Marmot looked like crap.  Wind hammered, slabby, and not worth the janky ski all the way down.  I thank the snowboards before us for exposing the rotten conditions that we would have encountered.  The snow further up the ridge looked superb.  Just upridge, out of the wind, sat deep wind deposited goodness, that talkeetna kind of blower that you dream about.  In fact, I’m dreaming about it now.  With no significant collapsing throughout our entire tour, and knowledge of no snow for nearly 36 hours, I gave it a go on one of my favorite runs in the area, sharing my excitement with only my dog.  Some folks had skied a similar line as well, but, more power to them, they beat me to it.

Drool...yes please.

There were some lines near the SE chute on Skycraper, but only about 1/3 of the way up the slope.  I guess it was worth it?  The north side of 4068 has ground exposed, as does the north face of Bald Mt. Ridge.  Lots of snow deposited on the south side.  It could be good, but, keep checking the Hatcher Pass Avy Center for updates.  Some areas could be pretty rotten.  On that south face I found that 4-6″ wind slab on new snow, on top of a dense layer, sitting atop facets on the ground.  I know it’s not very detailed, but you get the idea.

Lastly, I want to bring up the issue of motorized use at Hatcher.  I ran into two very different types of motorized users the last two days.  First, on sunday, the annual poach of lower government peak unit was conducted by the usual perpetrators.  We avoided the bench and frostbite ridge simply to keep our tour in a positive light.  This situation is bothersome because…we know who it is, and we know they don’t care.  They’ve told us.  The second was a gentleman and his girlfriend who parked in the Marmot lot this afternoon.  After watching him for a bit, the guy backed his truck up to the snow bank, and began to unload his sled.  I calmy walked over and informed him that the area is not open yet.  Our conversation is as follows (no embellishment):

Me: Hey man, I don’t want to be rude, but this lot isn’t open for sleds yet.  There’s not enough snow.
Guy: Oh mann, well where is open? Anywhere?
Me: No, there’s not enough snow. There’s a sign right there.
Guy: Well, what’ll happen, who will know? I’m just going up the trail.
Me: Uh…you’ll get a ticket, the rangers will write you one.
Guy: Oh..well…how much is the ticket, not too much right?
Me:  Dude…it’s not open, there’s a sign right there, insufficient snow.  Why do you want to piss people off right now for no reason?
Guy: What people?
Me:  There’s a lot of people who seriously hate snowmachines. You’re not doing yourself a favor.  The rangers are on the other side of the hill, they will write you up.  Sorry man.
Guy:  Yeah yeah, alright.

I walked away, and he drove away.  Why did I find it necessary to inform you of this?  Because, the difference is, this guy doesn’t know the rules.  He had no idea, no inkling of what’s going on.  The rangers have been preparing for the sled opening this past week.  As usual, their signs are small, unreadable, and there are absolutely NO MAPS  clearly present to indicate the delineation of motorized and non/motorized areas.  Tell the rangers and state parks they need to do better.  Seriously…why have rules if they aren’t followed; by the enforcers or the rule breakers.  Sleds are not bad, but neither are non-motorized areas. Do you know the boundaries?

Don’t forget our screening of MSP’s Attack of La Nina.

Come out for a fun time and meet some of your fellow valley riders!  Grow the community!