Location: Brush Creek Area
Date of Observation: 04/09/2020
Name: Ian Havlick
Subject: Teocalli
Aspect: East, South East, South, South West, West, North West
Elevation: 8500-13000
Avalanches: Observed a variety of wet loose and some gouging and developing wet slab activity, all looked to have run Tuesday or Wednesday during peak warming. Avalanches observed ranged from pushy D1 to D2, but all would have been ugly and dangerous if involved. The most impressive activity was on mid elevation, near treeline to above treeline, east and west-facing terrain, all initiated as wet loose and as they ran, entrained deeper weak layers, some which propagated as slabs. Shallow, rocky terrain most punchy and suspect with wet slab structure and failing easily in hand shears on old, 4-6mm moist depth hoar.
Weather: Clear skies overnight with some thin cirrus moving in mid morning. Temperatures were pretty obviously inverted with lows in the low 20s in valley bottoms, and mid to upper 20s above 11,000ft it seemed. Left the field 12:00.
Snowpack: Snowpack is hanging in there with overnight refreezes to provide safe travel until about 12, past that, ski and snowmobile travel grows more difficult in the shallower parts of forecast area, Brush Creek with tracks augering and skis punching. HS ranged 30-80cm in terrain traveled. Overnight refreeze 2-6″ deep, with still dry winter-like snow deeper in the snowpack. Areas shallower than 40-60cm are isothermal in full meltdown. Got some major collapses both on still frozen uptrack, and on descent, which must have been big to notice on south-facing descent!
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