Snow Season may be late, but avalanche experts remain vigilant

Despite the dearth of snow on the Kenai Peninsula, the Chugach National Forest’s Avalanche Information Center is gearing up.
    The Forest, which surrounds the Seward Highway, is doubly-cursed as being prime avalanche country and exceedingly easy to access for off-road and back-country recreation.
    As a result, avalanche specialists working out of the Chugach National Forest Glacier Ranger District in Girdwood, provide detailed observations and forecasts and daily backcountry avalanche advisories from November through April.
    Those three full time avalanche professionals specialists are funded with help from Friends of the Chugach Avalanche Center. They provide free information to the public at their website.
    If you’re going to be in Anchorage this month, there will be three avalanche awareness events coming up.
    On Friday there is an all-day workshop at the University of Alaska Anchorage campus in conjunction with the American Avalanche Association.
    On Nov. 14, Alaskans will share their lessons learned in the backcountry at “Snow Stories 2.0,” that night at Bear Tooth Theater Pub, and on the 21st, there will be a snowmachine-specific avalanche discussion on recognizing unstable snow on the go.