The slide occurred at a time when forecasters in the region are cautioning backcountry skiers and snowboarders about the potential for warming weather to increase avalanche risk.
The slides come near the end of an avalanche season experts say is notable both for its heightened danger and lack of deaths.
Alaska Railroad freight train derailed early Tuesday after plowing into avalanche debris south of Girdwood. The debris spread roughly 300 feet across the tracks.
The creek slide is the latest environmental incident to strike the Kenai Peninsula this week: a massive landslide in Seward on May 7 continues to block Lowell Point Road, a wildfire broke out near Sportsman’s Landing on May 8 and a separate wildfire broke out on May 10 near Wildman’s.
The landslide, estimated to be 300 feet wide, has completely cut off the community of Lowell Point. Lowell Point Road is the only land access between Lowell Point and the City of Seward. As a result the City of Seward cannot access critical wastewater facilities.
Temperatures in the area were unseasonably high last week, reaching into the mid-40s, according to the National Weather Service. Then temperatures dropped below freezing Sunday and into Monday morning. "There's a lot of water flowing underground in this area," McCarthy said. The freeze-thaw "caused some instability and that made it slide."
Sport fishermen are struggling to reel in the rainbow trout and Dolly Varden that usually are so abundant in fall.
The celebrity glacier on the Kenai Peninsula, though relatively small and getting smaller, looms large in the public consciousness.
Alaska Division of Forestry spokesman Norm McDonald said the 2-acre fire's exact cause has not been determined but is suspected to be similar to that of four smaller Mat-Su wildfires earlier Thursday. Those blazes were tracked to backfires from a white Chevrolet pickup truck.
A recent study estimates permafrost coverage on the peninsula has decreased by 60 percent since 1950. Permafrost is usually associated with Northern and Interior Alaska, but it also occurs in isolated pockets in wetlands on the Kenai Peninsula.
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