Date of Observation: 12/23/2021
Name: D K

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Cement winter TH up Warm Springs and down Walrod

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: None
Weather: Steady snowfall at 1″ per hour. 3″ of accumulation at 430pm on 12/23. Currently 12″+ in CBS at 7am on 12/24.
Snowpack: Mostly poked at E facing slopes around 9200. Found a mix of discontinuous crusts up to 1cm thick over facets and new snowfall resting directly on facets depending on tree coverage. The Walrod slide path start zone was briefly in view and any anchoring vegetation was covered.

Date of Observation: 12/23/2021

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Irwin townsite

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: In Irwin townsite doing last minute shovel prior to storm. Quality graupel shower at the start of the storm. 11-11:45 am. Half inch or better before turning to snow.
Snowpack:

Date of Observation: 12/23/2021
Name: Zach Guy and Zach Kinler

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Red Lady Ave and Elk Ave avalanche terrain features near downtown Crested Butte

Observed avalanche activity: No
Snowpack: The snowpack is shallow, weak, and entirely faceted, with a couple of surface hoar layers. The amount of snowfall over the next week will directly influence slab size on these slopes. See profiles.

Date of Observation: 12/21/2021
Name: Cam Smith

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: The southeasternmost NW mountains

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather:
Snowpack: S, SW, and W slopes BTL and NTL near Splains Gulch- open areas and sparsely treed areas had sun crusts rang from Ibuprofren crust to CBD crust on the “Than Acuff knee pain scale”
Densely treed areas have held up nicely on the surface from last weeks wind and this weeks sun

N slope BTL near Ohio Pass- in open areas there was surface hoar so big and tall that every step of skinning through it sounded like shattering glass

Date of Observation: 12/21/2021
Name: Travis Colbert

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Up the standard (but currently a bit wonky) skintrack. Skied a few runs and did not encounter a single slab (except for obvious pillows of wind compacted snow just of the ridge). Weak, faceted snow to the ground. Fun for now, but about to get really interesting if it snows as much as forecasted.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: No wind. Sunny skies. Cold in the shade.

Date of Observation: 12/21/2021
Name: Colorado Avalanche Information Center

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Traveled on S and SE aspects on Mt. Emmons to 12,300 ft.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: 17 Degrees at the trailhead. Sunny. Calm to light winds.
Snowpack: Not anything that we don’t already know. Scouring and pockets of windslab at ridge top indicating recent southwest winds. A quick hand pit on a shaded north aspect at 10,800 ft revealed small facets at the ground below a fist hard yet relatively cohesive slab. The snow surface throughout the day changed a lot depending on the precise aspect and when it got sun. It varied between crust, surface facets (radiation recrystallization?) and soft, sun affected snow (there were even a few small loose wet sloughs when skiing the SE face). No obvious signs of instability on S aspects although I didn’t dig to look. Things will surely get interesting with the upcoming storm as there will probably be lots of isolated pockets of less predicable instabilities in addition to the more widespread PWL.

Date of Observation: 12/18/2021
Name: Cormac Zachar

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: NE aspect of Snodgrass. Skinned up the meadow and toured down California Bowl to gothic road.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Triggered the slide shown below from a jump turn ~10 yards above the start zone. Started just below a section of aspens standing on a 40-45 slope, ran through the bowl’s ~35 degree slope area. Appeared to be all recent storm snow that slid, no major slab identifiable.
Weather: Sunny, skied late afternoon with weather in the teens and the bowl in the shadows.
Snowpack: Shallow/early season coverage for Snodgrass. Ski pen to the ground in the upper bowl near 10,850 (hit rocks on the first several turns), snowpack depth increased moving from the top of the bowl to gothic road. Before dropping into the bowl, triggered one shooting crack on the ridge about 5-6 feet long at 10,900. Felt a few other collapses down in the flatter slopes nearer gothic road at the end of the run.

Date of Observation: 12/19/2021
Name: Bud Tymczyszyn

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Red Lady Glades from Kebler TH.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: Clear and cold, -7 — mid 20s
Snowpack: Dug a pit off the skin-track at 10,400 NE 28deg slope. Got a collapse while digging, and a propagating test result on the basal facets.  ECTP14SC at 23cm.

Also dug a pit to look at snowpack structure on a SSE aspect at 11,400ft. Only potential area of concern was a soft slab resting on a 1cm crust down about 20cm. Didn’t get a propagating result at this interface and saw no signs of instability on a nearby wind-loaded test slope.

We primarily traveled on southerly facing terrain with no other signs to instability. Snow surfaces stayed cold on these lower angled slopes.

Photos:

Date of Observation: 12/18/2021
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Mount Whetstone, South to east to north aspects up to 12,200 ft.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: Some old slides and ski triggered a 2” wind slab on a north aspect ATL
Weather: Cold, light winds, clear skies.
Snowpack: In wind-sheltered below treeline terrain, we observed continuous collapses while breaking trail, some localized and about a dozen rumbling collapses that propagated up to 100 ft. The culprit was the 12/6 surface hoar layer, a little more than a foot deep below a faceting soft slab. As we ascended to near and above treeline, the signs of instability stopped; slabs were denser and the surface hoar changed to just facets/depth hoar. Stability tests on a low angle east aspect at 11800 ft produced a mix of propagating and non-propagating results below a 2 foot slab (4F to 1F hard) on the 12/6 crust facet complex. (ECTP26, ECTN26, ECTX, PST55/100 END). See profile. Snow surfaces are faceting at all elevations, with small surface hoar growth below treeline. The 12/15 surface hoar layer is also well preserved below a few inches of snow, at least 10mm in size.  Most of the alpine start zones where we traveled were scoured from the big wind event on 12/15, big erosional features and bare ground exposed in places.

Photos:

Date of Observation: 12/17/2021
Name: Ben Pritchett

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic Road to East River

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: Ridgeline Wind Speed: 10-20 mph
Ridgeline Wind Direction: W
Wind Loading: None
Temperature: 15 F
Sky Cover: Overcast
Depth of New Snow: 4 cm
Depth of Total Snow: 65 cm
Weather Description: Light snow showers, chilly, just a bit of wind, but not enough to move snow in the valley.
Snowpack: Several large, slope-scale collapses with spiderweb cracks where settled slabs sat previously undisturbed on old weak snow. Where I found snow deeper than around 2.5′ deep, predictably the slope would collapse and crack. Where the snowpack was shallower on slopes that lacked the old snow, the Dec 9-10 storm snow is beginning to facet and loose strength (in this particularly cold valley).