Axtell avalanches

Date of Observation: 02/23/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Mount Axtell ridgeline and west facing glades to 12,000 ft.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A handful of naturals that ran last night and this morning on Axtell, some D2s in 2nd Bowl and what looks like a D3 where the Pencil ran wall to wall and propagated into the lower part of Wang Chung. We remotely triggered at least one D2.5 in 2nd Bowl, and came across another very fresh slide that we either remotely triggered from very far away or it ran naturally minutes before we got there. There were also a bunch of natural slides above Coal Creek and one above Kebler Pass road, D1 to D1.5 in size. Details in the avalanche tabs.
Weather: Moderate snowfall this morning changed to light snowfall and light winds midday. A pulse came through around 3 p.m. that brought an hour of heavy snowfall rates and notable blowing snow off of the trees.
Snowpack: Widespread collapsing. We even got regular localized collapses in tight trees, which was a noticeable difference from yesterday. It seems that the slopes that were heavily blasted by northerly winds prior to the storm are bonding better than everywhere else. I’m hypothesizing that based on crown line locations and the little bit of feedback I was able to get underfoot in the wind-crusted terrain.