Date of Observation: 01/28/2022
Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Owen
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Rider triggered small wind slab. Broke after landing small cliff drop propagated fairly wide as seen in photo.
Weather: Sunny
Snowpack: Wind affected
Date of Observation: 01/28/2022
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Ascended red lady glades and descended red lady bowl
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Red lady bowl, 12,000ft
9am
SE aspect, small crown visible about 75ft below the ridge on a >35 degree slope lookers left of the center bowl
1x, R2D1, Wind Slab, skier triggered, 5cm deep x 4.5m wide, ran on uppermost crust, length ~300ft, stopped as slope angle dipped below 30 degrees
Weather: Sky: CLR
No precious
Wind: Calm
Snowpack: Snowpack was as forecasted with small wind slab on top of the uppermost crust
Date of Observation: 01/26/2022
Name: Keitha Kostyk
Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: NE aspect on Schulkill Ridge
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Avalanche-ish :) made ski cut in the new snow just under the high point on the ridge. Ski cut produced a little sluff that, when it rolled over a cliff band, picked up some momentum and more snow and ran really far, really slow. We were anticipating maybe a little movement with the new snow, but we’re surprised by how far it ran.
Weather: Calm, cold, sunny, pretty darn splendid.
Snowpack: Stable, supportive, no signs of instability other than the fast running facets.
Date of Observation: 01/23/2022
Name: Peter Horgan
Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: We descended one of the chutes above Green Lake on the far looker’s left side of Axtel. Refer to the picture attached here.
Aspect: NNW
Elevation: ~11,500
Slope angle: ~45 degrees
Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: No avalanches were observed. Given the current awareness/concern around sluff, I wanted to report that we did not have any sluffing at this location.
Snowpack: The snowpack was measured at 235cm near the bottom of the chute.
Date of Observation: 01/24/2022
Name: Frank Stern
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Emmons and Climax areas, 9,000 to 11,000
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Loose snow N facing in easternmost Climax chute 10,000′, D1, looks like natural release, 2 further east natural, Wolverine Basin 11,500′ east facing
Weather: Sunny and calm
Snowpack: Solid
Date of Observation: 01/23/2022
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: 8,700-11,300 feet; SE, E & NE aspects.
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: D1 loose wet avalanche on a rocky, east-facing slope. Picture is not the best, but looker’s left side of the start zone.
Weather: Single digits in the morning, warming into the 20s later in the day. Sunny and clear. Steady WNW wind was loading leeward slopes ATL.
Snowpack: Pole probing throughout the tour revealed an HS of 100-120cm. 5-10cm of new snow. Sheltered (BTL) NE terrain skied well. E & SE terrain exhibited varying levels of crusty-ness.
Date of Observation: 01/22/2022
Name: Andrew Breibart
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Red lady skin track to gunsight pass to Redwell to Wrong Chute to the OBJ CG
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: sloughs on scarp ridge-NE aspect ATL (see pictures)
Weather: calm, clear, and warm in the sun.
Snowpack: 2 inches of new snow within past 24 hours on south side on Mt Emmons. New snow lays on top of slick melt freeze crust. 6 to 8 inches of new snow within past 24 hours on the north side. Ski pen on the north side is mostly 4 to 5 inches and soft under foot. While skiing wrong chute, we released fast moving sluffs below the road in steeper terrrain. We observed sluffs along Scarp Ridge which occurred within the past 24 hours (see pictures).
Photos:
Date of Observation: 01/22/2022
Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Skier’s far left in Climax shoots
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Visible skier-triggered slide activity that looked like D1. I observed it from the Nordic trails.
Date of Observation: 01/20/2022
Name: BILLY RANKIN
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Snodgrass Frontside
Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: None
Weather: Clear, Sunny, warm, High temps in the mid 20’s, wind picked up at the end of the day
Snowpack: HS: 80-120 We dug a profile on a NE aspect below tree line on a 20 degree slope:
HS: 120cm: 5cm’s of facets on the surface 110cm’s of 1F to Pencil+ Hard Midpack on top of 5cm’s rounding facets 2mm on the ground (Dec 6) but discontinous.
CT24 SC on the Dec 6 Interface, 2mm rounding facets.
ECTX
PST End 70/110 on Dec 6 Interface.
Date of Observation: 01/19/2022
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: North side of Snodgrass to Gothic, White Ridge to Queen Basin, Gothic Road back to Snodgrass TH. 9,400-12,400 feet, mostly N aspects.
Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: Clear & calm. Warm in the sun, cold in the shade.
Snowpack: Sometimes it is even worse than it looks! Pretty much side slipped down an entire north-facing couloir into Queen Basin on as-firm-as-it gets wind board. Threw one turn in near the bottom just to make sure I remembered how. Looked like a previous party had a fairly similar experience. Even the apron was wind-hammered, but the textured snow allowed for some choppy and punchy turns. Protected north-facing, BTL slopes are still holding soft, faceting snow. Anything with a southern tilt seems to be quite crusty. Fun times!
