Hatcher Pass road likely closed all week due to avalanche danger

HATCHER PASS — The Hatcher Pass Road has been closed since April 3 and will likely remain closed by the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities until at least April 11 in what is one of the largest spring avalanche cycles in decades.

“This is pretty unusual. These are really large avalanches and they are affecting the lower road, which hasn’t happened,” said DOTPF spokesperson Shannon McCarthy. “We have closed the road in the past in the spring. However, the avalanches that we’re seeing now, we haven’t seen these for at least 40 years, that’s coming straight from the mouth of my avalanche specialist and these are what they consider class 4 avalanches. They are unusual and they’re large.”

The first road closure of the winter by DOTPF in Hatcher Pass occurred on March 26. Excavators were able to remove the snow and reopen the roadway just hours later, but snow continued to fall in Hatcher Pass as temperatures increased, creating an unstable snowpack and numerous avalanche problems.

“The risk for avalanche was super high by Saturday night,” said McCarthy. “We moved the closure back to milepost 12.5 on the 4th of April because we had an avalanche come down and impact the road, then this morning we moved that back down to milepost 10 and the reason why was we had I think 3 or 4 avalaches come through the area impacting the lower road.”

The Hatcher Pass Avalanche Center provides two avalanche forecasts weekly and had warned of increased avalanche danger before the first slide that caused road closure. The most recent HPAC forecast on April 5 is the highest rating for avalanche danger yet this winter with high risk at all elevations. HPAC forecaster Allie Barker submitted avalanche observations in Hatcher Pass with photographs taken from the air and reported five separate avalanches that crossed roadways in Hatcher Pass over the weekend.

“This was a historic avalanche cycle with many D3+ avalanches and many D2’s. DOT says this could be bigger than 1981 when the last avalanche cycle of this size occurred,” wrote Barker. “Most avalanches were storm slabs and wind slabs. Some storm slabs stepped down or pulled out pockets of the persistent slab facet/depth hoar layer. Many avalanches released twice during the storm with most chunky debris occuring after 2:30pm when SWE increased to .1” per hour.”

Out of the five avalanches reported by Barker, one slide crossed the road twice, sliding across both the upper and lower sections.

“An avalanche warning has been extended and is in effect until Tuesday, April 6 at 7am. The Avalanche danger will be high today. Human triggered avalanches are very likely and naturals are likely on all aspects, at all elevations. HP received 11″ inches of new snow with 2″ inches of water and winds gusting 20-40 mph for the past 24 hours. The persistent weak layer has been easily overloaded by this storm. Numerous large natural avalanches have been reported at Hatcher Pass yesterday that have hit and covered the road. The road is CLOSED before Skeetawk and we encourage you not to travel anywhere at Hatcher Pass at this time,” wrote Barker.

In contrast to the first major avalanche of the season, DOTPF has not been able to deploy heavy machinery to excavate the snow on the roadways. Due to the extreme avalanche danger even at lower elevations of Hatcher Pass, McCarthy said that the two avalanche specialists on staff will continue to monitor the mountains daily. Disparate from other areas of avalanche danger along public roadways, McCarthy said Hatcher Pass is unique.

“We don’t we have known chutes that will let loose and they’ll impact the road way and so that’s what our specialist are looking for and then of course we work in conjunction with the HPAC avalanche specialists that are really looking at the forecasts for the backcountry because of course we want people to get to and from their location safely,” said McCarthy. “The road is most likely going to be closed for another five days and of course we have our avalanche specialists. They’re going up there every day and checking on it but considering what the weather forecast is like, we’re thinking because there’s currently another storm that’s going to move in and it’s not causing snow down here on the flats of Anchorage but it is definitely depositing material up in the mountains and of course Hatcher Pass is one of those places where it’s dumping nice and good but it’s not in a nice way at all, because it’s pretty unstable.”