Tutshi Zone Upper

As highway crews work frantically to open the highway, the avalanche was able to fly part of the corridor for observations, digging pits and de-riming weather stations. (Couldn’t make it to YAASUM).

We dug at 1400-1700 meters and found the snowpack to be well bonded and cohesive. It wasn’t obvious where last weeks storm interface was in the snowpack. At this altitude on NEasps there was no sign of crusts or rain effect. Snowpack tests only yielded a few failures (CTH) that were not consistent.

As you can see in the third photo, there were some recent activity that were some small surface slides from recent SW wind loading. For this elevation and above it looks like the snowpack is well set up for a great winter ahead.