Click here for an early season conditions update (11/25/14)
Regular observations and information will be provided as soon as there’s sufficient snow coverage
- Need some new gear and threads for the 2014-15 season? How does a great buy on Patagonia Capilene 4 Pro clothing, BCA ski backpacks, Voile shovels and probes, Black Diamond avalanche gear, Pieps beacon, and CAMP USA ski-mountaineering equipment sound? These products and more will be available at the “Trial & Error” Premiere’s silent auction, with 100% proceeds directly supporting the Anchorage Avalanche Center’s 2014-15 program. Plus, free 18″ Voile straps for the first 50 people through the door that donate to the AAC. Numerous door prizes and free schwag (BCA koozies, stickers from sponsors, catalogs, posters, etc.). Anchorage Avalanche Center posters will be available too ($20 each). You can see what those look like on the AAC Facebook page. “Like” the AAC, if you haven’t already!
- Join the Alaska Avalanche Information Center for a solstice-season celebration and benefit for the Anchorage Avalanche Center: Thursday, December 18, 2014 at the BP Energy Center (900 E Benson Blvd). We’ll be premiering Whiteroom Productions new film “Trial & Error.” Admission is free, with a suggested donation of $10. Doors open and silent auction begins at 6pm. Anchorage Avalanche Center presentation at 6:30pm. Film starts at 7pm. 100% proceeds directly support the Anchorage Avalanche Center’s programming for the 2014-15 season. There will be door prizes and free schwag.
- The Anchorage Avalanche Center was in Banff for the 2014 International Snow Science Workshop. Check out the paper on our presentation: Piloting an Avalanche Advisory Program for Public Recreation in Alaska’s Most Readily Accessible Avalanche Terrain: the Front Range and Eagle River Area Chugach Mountains
- The Alaska Avalanche Information Center Snow Safety Summit and the Southcentral Alaska Avalanche Workshop (put on by the CNFAIC and APU) were both big successes! We’re already looking forward to next year’s pre-season events!
- The Anchorage Avalanche Center concluded its second season of avalanche advisories and professional observations for the most frequently visited avalanche terrain of Chugach State Park with its April 26-27, 2014 weekend avalanche outlook. The Anchorage Avalanche Center provided advisories for 58 days and professional observations for 42 days during the 2013-14 season. The Anchorage Avalanche Center provided an avalanche outlook for every weekend from December 13, 2013 to April 27, 2014 plus additional advisories-outlooks and observations as much as possible and as conditions dictated due to increasing danger. If you find this avalanche information program valuable and would like to see it continue for seasons to come, please make a tax-deductible donation to help the Anchorage Avalanche Center achieve sustainability.
Support your local grassroots avalanche center!
Despite close proximity to the state’s most densely populated region, heavy wintertime use, rapidly increasing recreation in avalanche terrain in recent years, and 16 avalanche related fatalities in the past few decades, Chugach State Park (CSP) lacked an organized avalanche information program prior to the development of the grassroots Anchorage Avalanche Center (provided through a partnership with the non-profit Alaska Avalanche Information Center). CSP’s most popular, and Alaska’s most readily accessible, avalanche terrain of the Front Range and Eagle River areas comprise the Anchorage Avalanche Center’s core advisory zones.
Anchorage Avalanche Center mission: to increase the safety, awareness, and recreational enjoyment of winter backcountry enthusiasts visiting the avalanche terrain of Anchorage’s backyard mountain playground (Chugach State Park) through an avalanche advisory program, forum for public snow-avalanche observations, and winter backcountry education.
Anchorage Avalanche Center vision: comprehensive avalanche information and education for backcountry recreation in Chugach State Park.
Learn more about the Anchorage Avalanche Center effort:
Piloting a backcountry avalanche advisory program for Alaska’s most readily accessible avalanche terrain: The Front Range and Eagle River area Chugach (eight page overview presented at the 2014 International Snow Science Workshop)
Piloting an avalanche advisory program for public recreation in the Front Range and Eagle River Area Chugach Mountains: Strategy, challenges, and viability (88 page full report)