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Observation: Hatcher Pass
Location: Upper Archangel Valley to Upper Lane Valley
Toured from the end of Archangel road to the summit of Didilkama via the Lane Glacier.
Observer Comments
Weather
Cloudy with dropping cloud ceiling as the day progressed. Snowing moderately at 9:30am start gradually tapering to light snow by late afternoon. Temps in upper 20s. Calm, no winds
Snow surface
2" of fresh snow at lot at 9:30 am. Up to 6-8" of new snow accumulations at elevations above 5000'. Despite warm temps, new snow was relatively light and dry.
Snowpack
No formal pits dug. Numerous hand pits and pole probes on W and SW aspects above 5000' while touring up the south side of the Lane Glacier. Pits generally showed 6" fresh powder over 4" fist hard settled powder over 5" 1F slab over 2" 4F on top of a thin 1 cm crust (rain or MF?) over 1" 4F layer over 6" knife hard melt freeze layer over 5" layer of fist hard facets. Informal tests within hand pits failed at the 4F/MF slab layer under moderately hard forces. Shallowest 4F layer was generally not bonding well to harder 1F layer, as evidenced by slick skinning conditions on steeper terrain.
Lane Valley at 4700'
Hand pit on west aspect at 5700' to coincide with hand pit in snowpack description
Didilkama north ridge viewed from the summit. Note the thin conditions at the pass to the Snowbird glacier in the far left of the photo.
Looking down on Lane valley from the upper snowfield of Didilkama.