Seward Ranger District - January 23, 2020

Another beautiful day and unfortunately ice continues to grow and wreak havoc in many trail locations. Carter Lake trail glacier continues to grow at ½ mile from the trailhead. Lost Lake trail in the first 1 mile has numerous icy chutes that are quite slippery and sno-gos have found them.

 All areas of Seward Ranger District that fall within the winter motorized opening of December 1-April 30 (except for Snow River access corridor to Nellie Juan) are now open to winter motorized use. 

The 2 photos in this email show Resurrection Pass Trail (Hope) at mile 5 of the hiking trail (6 miles from winter parking). A hundred feet of trail at mile 5 had a landslide and is a difficult passing on sno-go with the glaciation that is building in this area and very little snow to build up tread around the slide. If you travel on this section of trail be sure to have a buddy or 2 to help get down the ice and then back up on the trail.

Kenai Lake froze over the rest of the way from Ptarmigan Creek to the west on Monday night this week. Ice depth yesterday was 3.5 inches in front of my office.

With most areas of Seward Ranger District now open to motorized, area lakes frozen (remember safety and extra caution around inlets, outlets, seeps, pressure ridges, avalanches, etc.) and ski grooming of many locations I don’t anticipate sending regular trail condition updates for the remainder of the winter unless something of note comes up.

Have a Great Winter Season!!

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