AvCan in Haines Summit
Quick reportYukon Field Team · Apr 13, 2023 · Chilkat Pass
Quick report
- Weather
- foggy, sunny, windy
- Ride Type
- alpineSlopes, convexSlopes
- Riding Quality
- Good
- Snow Conditions
- powder, windAffected
- Avalanche Conditions
- avalancheConditionSlab
We spent the day riding east and west of the highway in Haines Summit from high point parking area. 10-20cm of low density snow has fallen since the weekend and covered most of the Easter weekend sled and ski tracks. The new snow has been blown around a little by the wind but in general, riding was quite good. At higher elevation up in the Summit we didn't find any significant wind slab development and we didn't get any snowpack test results in a test pit we dug at 1600m in a north facing alpine bowl. One notable observation we made on our way back to Haines was a size 3 Na persistent slab avalanche on a convex southeast facing shoulder at 850m elevation. This avalanche likely failed on a thick crust that formed late last fall or on the Jan 30 rain crust. The crown was 1m deep and the avalanche propagated up to 100m and ran up to 300m in the valley bottom forming a large debris pile. Likely triggered by a sudden warming of the snowpack.