Date of Observation: 03/10/2023
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Mount Emmons, various aspects near and below treeline.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Skier triggered a handful of small loose snow avalanches involving the new snow; the longest ran about 1000’ vert.
Weather: S1 to S2 throughout the day. Calm winds where we traveled.
Snowpack: The new snow was not bonding well to old surfaces (sun crusts, wind board, NSF). Storm totals ranged from about 8” or 9” NTL to 6” at valley floor by 4 pm. The snow was cohesionless and sluffing, no cracking or slabbing yet.

Date of Observation: 03/10/2023
Name: Mark Robbins

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: amr ziggins, big, east bowl

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: old debris at bottom of big chute under the steep roll on the right hand side. Also old debris at bottom of ziggins, I skied in the trees so didn’t identify where it had come from. Maybe from the right handrail of the ziggins gully?
No storm instabilities on the first two laps. On the last lap around 3:30 things seemed to be reaching a bit of a tipping point, the storm snow sluffing more actively with some clean fractures, tho no real propagation
Weather: warm and wet. 3-4 inches of heavy snow when I arrived at 1, another solid 3 inches on the sled 3 hours later. Calm throughout the amr tenure, some gusts on the ridge
Snowpack:

Date of Observation: 03/07/2023
Name: Mark Robbind

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Playground

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: See photo.

Weather: Air temp surprisingly cool, didn’t get uncomfortably warm

Snowpack: Unsupportive sun crust on southerlies in the morning. Dry snow with very manageable wind affect near and below tree line north-northeast

Date of Observation: 03/06/2023
Name: Ian Havlick

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Redwell Basin

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Cornice fall triggered deep slab in Redwell. Failed sometime after yesterday afternoon.

Date of Observation: 03/05/2023
Name: Ben Ammon

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Coney’s

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: Hella blowy.
Snowpack: 10,550′ NE 30* slope HS 295cm
ECTN 24 down 35cm
ECTN 27 down 50cm
ECTN 30 down 80cm
second ECT produced same results
no propagation or reactivity down to 110cm

Date of Observation: 03/04/2023
Name: Danny H

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Travelled up to the Snodgrass saddle and then up towards Gothic through an southeast facing couloir.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Remnant avalanche that came through the spork couloir down Gothic probably from the wind loading last week. Also saw evidence of cracking with a 4-inch thick propagating crack that gave on the old wind crust from last week.
Weather: Calm and overcast until around 4pm when ridgeline winds began ripping.
Snowpack: Dug a test pit to assess the faceted layer about 2 feet down. The facets were overlaid by a 4cm thick melt-freeze crust most likely from the period before this last number of storms and we could not activate the weak layer with ECTX results.

Date of Observation: 03/04/2023
Name: Ben A

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Snodgrass East and North

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: Overcast most of the day with occasional moments of greenhousing, and Souths were warming.
Snowpack: 10,000′ E – HS 195cm
CTH down 25cm and 40cm
ECTN24 down 25cm, ECTN26 down 40cm
ECTP down 90cm on bonus taps after removing the ECTN results

Date of Observation: 03/01/2023
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Friends Hut area, shared via InReach

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: D2 remote east ntl. 2-4 feet deep. Couldn’t get to crown but crust/facet above crown likely culprit.

Photos:

Date of Observation: 02/28/2023
Name: jeff banks

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Kebler zone

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: howling winds along Kebler road and zero visibility at times
snow increased to 2-3cm/hr ~1:30PM with low density fluff
Snowpack: Intense snow transport + drifting in the open Kebler road areas

Snow not affected by wind in the thick old growth forest -No drifting or wind slab- @ 9,500-10,700
Lots of tree bombs releasing

Numerous hand shears showed the new snow well bonded to the old surface.
Cohesive, denser Mid-storm layer 10cm thick (heavily rimed + graupel) with a little localized cracking, but un-reactive on steep micro terrain log pillows.

Date of Observation: 02/28/2023
Name: Mark Robbins

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: the usual anthracites shots

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: third party member in ziggins rode a little further left than the first two, who skied right of the main gully with no reactivity. Entering the main gully right of the windlip/cornice, it broke, and while the rider cut right, it ran with fast energy the full track of ziggins to the bench. I didn’t see it but it sounds like most or all of the windlip broke and ran. Entrained storm snow but no other propagating or stepping down.

wind-lips on right side of big chute fractured with shooting cracks when skiing up to them. Stomped some off, which broke easily but didn’t run far and didn’t produce any results.
Weather: the wind was indeed violent, tho mellowed as the day went on. Snow was coming down heavy most of the time, with the skin track partially to fully filled in between laps with new snowfall and wind transport.
Snowpack: Thick 8 inches of new snow with a little graupel in the mix, with an additional 4-6 or so increasingly fluffy snow falling during the day.