Snow
Note the location where an avalanche started just below and left of the center of the photo.
It has been such a cold spring, with the snow level regularly below 1000ft even into May, I had forgotten that winter did not start out this way. Even into late December, the snow level was regularly well above 3500 feet (as amid-December photo of Mt. Edgecumbe attests). A conversation with an enthusiastic snow boarder yesterday reminded me of this fact.
He related travelling to Juneau to ski over Christmas break and being forced to spend the time watching movies in the hotel room, since there was not enough snow on the mountain. The Sheldon Jackson College winter sports classes were postponed from January until Spring Break due to lack of snow in Juneau as well. It was not any better here until snow started accumulating in January.
There were a few warm days in February, but then in March we were hit with record setting cold for a couple of weeks. Since that time it seems that spring has been coming three weeks delayed from last year.
SitkaNature » Snow Update posted: 24 May at 9:24 pm
[...] Last week I wrote a post on snow with a photo showing where an avalanche had cut loose. Since that time a second avalanche has also released on the same hillside (see above). I suspect these did not make it all the way down to Medvejie Lake, but it would be interesting to see. [...]