Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 01/28/2019
Name: Eric Murrow

Subject: Quick look BTL on west end of Emmons
Aspect: East, South East, South
Elevation: 9,200′ – 10,500′

Avalanches:

Weather: Snow S1 with short periods of S2 during AM. Skies began became partly cloud by 2pm and snow tapered off, about 2.5inches new at 2pm.

Snowpack: Took a look at some easterly terrain near several natural avalanches that failed 1/25 or 1/126. HS at 10,400′ in rolling easterly terrain averaged around 160cm. On one East facing roll the early January weak layers were around 75cm down (was able to pick some rounding SH out of the interface), ECTX. This was likely the interface responsible for the nearby natural avalanches. Mid-December weak layer and early season basal weak layers continue to gain strength and round. Interfaces of interest in this deeper snowpack part of the forecast area are becoming the 1/15 and 1/21.

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Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 01/27/2019
Name: IG

Subject: Irwin Cat Ski Obs
Aspect:
Elevation:

Avalanches:

None today in our Tenure. Natural off Ruby from yesterday or day before. see photo

Weather: BRK Skies turned to FEW by the end of the day with moderate solar radiation and some green
housing through thin clouds. Winds were calmer today than yesterday.

Snowpack: South got moist today as well lower elevation SW. Good quality skiing all day with no signs of instability. We have not been skiing the UWW and LEAN was the highest we got in the Westwall.

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Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 01/27/2019
Name: Travis Tucker

Subject: Snow Profile on Ponytail Glades
Aspect: South
Elevation: 11,530’

Avalanches:

Red Lady Bowl Ridge @ 12,200’ @ time unknown
C-CN-R1/D1.5-I
SZ Ridge / Terminus TR
.5x15x45m
Cornice dropped on windslab

Weather: FEW clouds
27*F
Light winds from the NW-W with stronger gusts

Snowpack: 27* Test slope
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Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/27/2019
Name: Casey Graham

Subject: AIARE 1 tours in Washington Gulch
Aspect: North East, East, South East
Elevation: 10, 800

Avalanches:

Peak west of Painter boy mine, E face on the south end of the ridge. PS, R1 D2~300ft. crown, ran ~300ft, E facing slope.

Weather: Mod. W winds, Broken sky, no precip., cold temps most of the day with a high of -2degC

Snowpack: Coney’s Crews – Avalanche observed above TL on peak west of painter boy mine. PS size 2 ~300ft. crown, ran ~300ft, E facing slope. Wind loading observed on NE aspects BTL

Pit dug near Ridgeline in Coney’s – 10,800PS found over early season facets. NE aspect, near tree-line, 26 deg. slope angle, HS-138, layer of concern: buried facets down 75cm. CTN x2

Snodgrass: Pit dug ESE, 10,800ft, 12 deg slope angle, HS 115, CTN x2 ECTX
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Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/27/2019
Name: ADB

Subject: Snodgrass-End of the Melt down
Aspect: East, South East
Elevation: BTL

Avalanches:

Weather: Obstructed skies and calm.

Snowpack: Trees: supportive and stiff in the trees. Open areas near the Gothic road have developed patchy sun crusts.
No signs of instabilities observed.
In thick dense trees, watch out for hollow shallow snow around saplings, as I caught a tip on three saplings; fell sideways with face buried in snow for 5 seconds before clearing air path. Had to pop out of two Dynafit bindings. A quick adrenaline rush.
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Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 01/26/2019
Name: James Bivens

Subject: Windslab Sensitivity in Evan’s Basin and Red Lady Glades
Aspect: South East, South, South West
Elevation:

Avalanches:

The top eastern face of Evan’s basin had a few older looking avalanches. Lower down, we observed a D2 avalanche on the eastern aspect of Evan’s Basin below treeline that appeared to have been remotely triggered by sleds. We didn’t see the party and the slope appeared to have been heavily wind-loaded. We also observed another similarly sized avalanche lower down on the same eastern aspect; this one appeared to have ran naturally after wind-loading. We also noticed some reactivity on the final (steeper) pitch before the road when we triggered a little windslab.

Weather: Sunny and super windy above treeline and moderately windy below treeline (even down to Kebler Pass where we received some helpful pushes from the wind while skating back to the trailhead). Further north and west there appeared to be a mix of more wind and lower hanging clouds (for example, we could not see Mt. Owen clearly from the summit of Red Lady).

Snowpack: The snowpack felt supportive with no collapses or shooting cracks (except for the little windslab below.) The skiing was lovely in dense, soft snow, but there were patches of snow in direct sunlight at lower elevations that were starting to heat up (before potentially refreezing into crusts tonight).
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Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/26/2019
Name: CBC AIARE Level 2 course

Subject: Red Coon Glades
Aspect: South East, South
Elevation: 9,200′ – 11,300′

Avalanches:

Viewed several fresh avalanches, the Evans basin slides were reported by a previous ob, but not sure from their ob if the saw all of these.
Evans Basin-East, D2 x 3 – from a distance looked to be 2 to 3 feet deep.
Axtel- NE, D1.5 – view at oblique angle, several old crowns above and what appeared to be freshish crown that was several feet deep but narrow

Weather: Left trailhead at about 12ish and this time winds were honking at the parking lot, blowing and drifting. Winds continued throughout the tour, but were lighter at our protected location until we reached more open near treeline terrain. Drifting and transport were visible above treeline on Axtel, Coon, and Redlady throughout the tour. Winds appeared to be drifting out of NW – N and depositing snow onto southern and eastern portions of the compass. Looked like snow was being blown lower into start zones.

Snowpack: Investigated snowpack on a near treeline SE slope. HS ranged between 120 – 150cm with somewhere near 140 being average. Of note was a buried SH layer down 30 to 45cm, we poked a couple of holes. The 1/15 crust was down around 55-60cm (this was a crust/facet/crust sandwich). Test results were CTN and ECTX. Foot pen. about 35cm and ski pen about 15cm. No cracking or collapsing

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Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 01/26/2019
Name: Joey Carpenter

Subject: Remote Trigger, Relentless NW winds
Aspect: South, South West, West
Elevation: 9600-11900

Avalanches:

ESE aspect initiating at 11.8k. This was a heavily windloaded slope. We were intentionally staying connected to this terrain feature (on the low angle ridgeline) and searching for shallow spots in the spx as we ascended since we knew the adjacent slopes were suspect. We got a small collapse at 11.7k (noted above) and didn’t think it propagated very far. However, as we ascended ~100 feet more, we saw the fresh debris pile of our remote trigger. This was an R1D2 slide that remote triggered from approximately 200 linear feet away around a terrain feature. The steepest part of the crown was on an approximated 37 degree slope. The crown did prop onto much lower angle terrain though. The slide was approximately 450 feet wide and ran 300 vertical feet. there were chunks of debris approximately 4x4x4ft at their largest. We did not inspect the bed surface as there was substantial hang fire above and we were unable to safely approach the crown.

Weather: Temperatures remained cold, very comfortable hiking temperatures. Sustained NW winds transported snow from high and mid elevation ridges throughout the day. Above 11k the western ridges are becoming scoured. Substantial wind effect on multiple aspects and elevations. The western part of the forecast area maintained clouds throughout our tour and they became thinner and less pronounced as you moved east across the zones. Solar intensity approached moderate for a few short periods during the day. However, cool temps and sustained winds kept snow surfaces cold.

Snowpack: We had two notable collapses on our tour. One at 11.1k on a 25 degree SSW facing slope while skinning, medium sized. Snowpack depth on this windloaded terrain feature was an average of 175cm. Did not dig to find the failure layer. The other collapse was at 11.7k on a S facing aspect and remotely triggered the avalanche described below.

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