I could see the wind being a major "blow"...lol...it does get rather blustery going through the pass in a vehicle let alone a helo....I once drove from Anchorage to Fairbanks in mid January and the road.....well it was not really a road, more like a solid blanket of hard packed snow. The weather is not as bad as one would think, obviously that changes rapidly and I'm sure the risks have been weighed, personally I would not wanna have a drill crew out just for the simple fact of the unpredictable weather, bad spot to get stuck...