Date of Observation: 12/12/2021
Name: Nick Couts
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Our party was starting at Wash gulch TH and crossing below coney’s proper to climb up the refill uptrack on the North end of coney’s. From there, crossing over Anthracite Mesa skiing the W aspect down and skinning back to Slate TH.
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: From the North end of Coney’s we spotted a few slides. The first looked to be skier triggered just below the start of “first bowl” Maybe D1.5/2? It appears the slab propagated to skier left and ran along the adjacent rib. Based on the pair of tracks they appeared to have veered skiers left to dodge the debris. Further below two other smaller pockets had released on the convex nose where First Bowl and Convex Corner merge together. Possibly remote triggers from the four pairs of tracks coming down first bowl and convex corner.
Weather: Bluebird, moderate sustained W/NW wind at the top of the Coney’s/A Mesa.
Snowpack: On our route up, there was lots of whumpfing and shooting cracks, and once we got into the uptick saw loads of previous cracks and collapses, some smaller in the recent storm layer and some stepping down to the basal faceting. Our descent down the W side or A mesa saw no sign of recent avalanches or experience and whumpfing. Depth was ~75cm, top half of snowpack was about F and lower half to the ground was about 4F.
