Western Chugach, Chugach State Park, Eklutna Lake area

Covered ~26 miles and ~8000′ vert up to almost 7000′ elevation. Excellent (fast and smooth) skating conditions on the Lake with a dusting of fresh snow on solid crust. Further back across the Lake and up the Eklutna valley snow depth and coverage increases substantially. While the trailhead area is thin (but still snow-covered) and southerly aspects at the west end of the valley are burning off quickly and becoming dry, this is not the case up valley to the SE where there is still a relatively deep snowpack (especially for mid-April at Eklutna).

The Bold Valley trail and surrounding forest was still covered with 1-3′ of very sold melt-freeze snow that didn’t soften the slightest over the course of the day. Above 3000′ in the Bold Valley, there was a significant amount of very dry fresh snow (a few to several inches increasing with elevation) from Sunday-Monday snow showers and skintrack trailbreaking was generally boot cuff deep. Surface conditions improved dramatically from this snowfall.

Solar aspects (E clockwise to W) had a generally supportable crust underneath the fresh powder. Even where there crust was less solid and pole probing could reach to the ground through a breakable crust and a thick layer of facets, no red flags (i.e. collapsing/whumphing) were experienced and many steep slopes with a crust were traversed throughout the day without incident. While the near-surface crust layer has stabilized areas with persistent instabilities, such areas with extensive January facets and depth hoar/basal facets near the ground are expected to reawaken and become extremely dangerous when the crusts breakdown with warming temperatures and increasing solar radiation.

On steep northerly terrain, low volume loose snow avalanches were human triggered. On the lee side of a col (~4800′, E aspect, 40º slope) a small (R1, D1) and relatively soft (1F hardness) fresh wind slab was human triggered. The weak layer/bed surface was the old snow surface (facets over a melt-freeze crust). A similar, adjacent wind slab was naturally triggered.