Seward Ranger District - December 13, 2019
Happy Friday the 13th after last night’s Cold Full Moon, let’s hope the cold moves back in as we have no snow at lower elevations and a lot of icy trails and roadways. Ice cleats will be needed in many locations as will studded bike tires. At least the sunsets are nice, see photos from yesterday.
Russian River Campground entrance gate is closed, add 1 mile to your trek if you hike or bike Lower Russian Lake Trail. Trail River Campground entrance gate remains open along with Primrose, Ptarmigan, Quartz Creek 1 loop, and Cooper Creek North.
The major windstorm Monday has fallen many trees across Seward Ranger District trails, our staff is extremely short-handed and with the Holidays we are not anticipating getting out and about to remove trees. At a minimum, you will want to take a handsaw with you on your outings. And, there is a lot of snow at higher elevations and we have had numerous avalanches in November and December when the warm temperatures and rains move in, see the attached photos of two impressive ones at mile 3 Hope Hwy.
Before venturing onto frozen waterways know before you go, and there’s a lot to know about traveling over frozen water. I’ve included a general Ice Thickness Chart, there are several available, and I like this more conservative chart, though I’m not a fan of cars/trucks traveling on frozen waterways.
In addition to this chart here are 2 websites I like in regards to travel on ice; the first one from wikihow is easy to read and discusses how to minimize dangers of traveling on frozen lakes.
The second web site offers a tremendous amount of information on many subjects relating to frozen bodies of water and is easy to navigate.
https://www.wikihow.com/Know-When-Ice-is-Safe
http://lakeice.squarespace.com/glossary/
DISCLAIMER – This information is taken from various publicly published electronic and hardcopy information sources, are uncensored and unedited, and do not necessarily report or reflect the opinions or the policies of the U.S. Forest Service.
So far this is our 4th rainy warmup since we began our late fall early winter freeze, Tern Lake is usually our first lake to freeze by Thanksgiving; so far this year it has frozen three times, the first time in mid-October adding 2” of ice, warm temps and rain turned this to open water; the 2nd freeze-up was 11/24/2019 and 3 days later there was 2 ¼” of ice, this opened up again to all water before adding a third try of freezing adding an inch before the warmth and rain in the 2nd week of December rendering it mostly all water. Tern Lake elevation is about 679’ and has depths of water from 2-15 feet.
Jerome Lake has depths to 15’ but is appx 250’ higher in elevation than Tern Lake and is usually a few degrees colder in air temperature which makes a difference. Ice thickness today measured 4 ¼” with 1/4” of water on top of smooth ice. Summit Lakeice measure the same inches as Jerome, smooth ice but beginning to snow with an inch of accumulation by 3:30.
Have a Great Weekend!
Irene Lindquist Forest Technician
Forest Service
Chugach National Forest, Seward Ranger District
p: 907-288-7748
irene.lindquist@usda.gov
33599 Ranger Station Spur
Seward, AK 99664
www.fs.fed.us
Caring for the land and serving people
