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| Breathtaking scenery and incredible vistas await the adventurous of spirit in the Turnagain Pass backcountry. Whether advanced or beginner, there’s terrain to match any skill level, just be sure to take the proper precautions and know your own personal boundaries when out exploring Alaska’s vast wilderness. |
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| Almost anyone in good health, who can walk, can snowshoe. Taking your dog or dogs can also add to the enjoyment and provide them with some excellent exercise. |
By Jim Magowan
Turnagain Times Correspondent
Spring snowshoeing in Turnagain Pass is about as good as snowshoeing gets. The scenery is spectacular, particularly on a clear sunny day. It is easy to select a route that gives the level of effort you want by following gentle slopes or benches for relatively easy walking or increasing the level of effort by heading up a slope.
Snowshoeing is a wonderful family activity too. Today’s snowshoes are a great improvement over the 59” “tennis racquets” we used years ago. We currently use a composite snowshoe that is lighter than most boots with a hinged binding that is great at dumping snow and a crampon like claw on the bottom for climbing, even on hard, ice crusted snow.
Almost anyone in good health, who can walk, can snowshoe.
Taking your dog or dogs can also add to the enjoyment and provide them with some excellent exercise.
I snowshoe with a trio of terriers, which presents some unique challenges. They love to charge off ahead into the snow. It takes them about 30 seconds to realize that it is tough to plow through soft snow when they sink in until their bellies rest on the snow. Then they switch to plan B—get behind the people on snowshoes and walk on the broken trail and the tails of the snowshoes. In order to succeed at this game you have to be at least as smart as the average terrier. If you are not alert to their plan you will probably be brought up short when you try to take a step with a dog standing on the back of the snowshoe and you do a faceplant in the snow.
With our pack this results in three dogs immediately jumping in to help. Help consists of climbing and jumping on the downed snowshoer and giving a good face licking. We use a special command when the dogs head for the back of the snowshoes, as well as for other mischief. They know the meaning of, “Don’t even think about it!”
While keeping an eye on the dog pack after they drop to the back of the line to walk on the packed trail, it is easy to overlook a couple of inches of the top of a bush, poking up from under the snow, until you step into the hole created by the bush. Getting up out of one of these holes usually requires someone wading through the canine “first responders” to give an assist.
All winter recreation in Turnagain Pass can turn from glorious to your worst nightmare in an instant if you do not use proper caution. Skiers and snowmachiners have been caught in fatal avalanches in Turnagain Pass. The latest fatality occurred Saturday, March 28 when a snowmachiner was buried in an avalanche.
An Alaska Railroad train has also been caught in an avalanche with 64 cars that needed to be dug out.
Avalanche expert Doug Fessler says, “Keep four things in mind when traveling in avalanche areas: steep, smooth, leeward, stress.” According to Fessler it usually takes at least a 25-degree slope for dry snow to avalanche.
Fessler says, “The average slope for triggered avalanches is 38 degrees. The high risk zone is the 30 ‘s and 40’s. Smooth is terrain with no vegetation or anything to help hold the snow in place. Snow on the leeward side of the terrain is less consolidated and stress can move one layer that is on top of another layer.”
A common misconception is that you are safe from avalanches when you are on top of a ridge. When an avalanche starts it can trigger slides on both sides of a ridge. Mountain climbers have a protocol for climbing on snow-covered ridges that drop steeply on either side. They travel roped up and in case of an avalanche they jump off the ridge. They decide before hand which way each climber will jump so they end up with the rope going over the ridge with at least one climber on each side of the ridge.
If you are going to snowshoe (or do anything) in steep, avalanche prone areas, Fessler recommends checking the slope with an inclinometer to improve your margin of safety.
Before venturing out, Fessler also recommends checking the Chugach National Forest Avalanche Information Center website (www.cnfaic.org. for conditions) for alerts and other avalanche safety information.
A final word of caution, if you drive carefully, you will be almost as safe in your car on the way to Turnagain Pass as you will be when you are snowshoeing.