alaskita

Bariloche, Argentina Backcountry Report: “Overexposed in Alaskita”

Snow spray on the lower fingers today.

Today was the first sunny day since Bariloche, Argentina’s 2-foot Monday storm. The storm was cold storm and things remained cold until today. I used the sunny weather to get out to my favorite backcountry zone in the area, Alaskita. I arrived on top of Alaskita at noon, exactly when things were heating up. I could feel it in the air and a bit in the snow. I could see the avalanche debris from a small avalache (likely caused by a small cornice collapse) near the bottom of the upper spines. It looked fresh. I felt that the upper spines of Alaskita […]
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Miles Clark |
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Bariloche, Argentina Backcountry Report: Wind-Swept Beauty

Bariloche had a big, sunny wind storm yesterday. It close the ski resort down for most the day. It buffed things out a bit and definitely pressed the snow down. I didn’t see any snow today that wasn’t wind affected in some way. I headed back out to Alaskita today. On the ski out there, I ran into the SGT crew. SGT is a ski/snowboard camp here in Bariloche that guides skiers and riders both inbounds and out. Today, they did a sweet tour. Alasita Run = Short Spines, Big Convex Face, to Fingers & Chutes. I made it to the top of Alaskita in about an hour after an uneventful ski and skin. The views today were precisoa. Temperatures were on the warm […]
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Miles Clark |
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Bariloche, Argentina Backcountry Report: The Big Lines of “Alaskita”

Little Alaska is my favorite line in Bariloche. It’s not too bad of a hike, the views are stunning, and the terrain is intense. Avalanche terrain management is priority number one here. The upper spines are subject to wind loading. The middle convex rollovers are textbook avalanche start zones and the lower chutes would flush you extremely hard if anything came down. This zone is only to be played with when stability confidence is high. The wind really hammered the Catedral massif two nights ago – pressing the snow down, scouring some zones, and filling in others. Little Alaska is very prone to wind and wind loading. The last time I […]
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Miles Clark |
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Bariloche, Argentina Backcountry Report & Photo Tour | Alaskita, Sub-Zero Temps, & Avy Risk

The last big snow storm to come through Bariloche, Argentina left 8 inches of snow at the bottom of Catedral ski resort and a couple feet up top on August 20th. Then it got cold. Real cold. About -4F (-20C) at night and highs were only rolling up to about 10F (-12C) during the day. This was the perfect recipe to keep the backcountry snow in great shape and keep the avalanche risk high. After harvesting 2 amazing days at the ski resort (August 21st & August 22nd), we decided to head out into the backcountry […]
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Miles Clark |
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