Date of Observation: 12/17/2021
Name: Alex Tiberio

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: NE run on snodgrass

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Debris from last major cycle mostly in areas with dense tree cover
Weather: Mostly clear skies with some snow flurries
Snowpack: Touchy on NE aspects. Dug a pit at the top of 3rd Bowl ECTP23 @ 10cm PSTend 25/100 @ 10cm Skied lower angled terrain near the saddle large whumping collapses while skiing

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

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: 3 laps at Coneys

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather:
Snowpack: Large collapse and cracks shooting 50-75 feet in the start zone of 1st Bowl proper (skiers left of the slide on 12/10). It was fairly stubborn, once it collapsed it fractured most of the start zone but didn’t slide.

Date of Observation: 12/17/2021
Name: Travis Colbert

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Up the gentle ridge across the gully from the main Red Lady skin track toward Coon Basin. Stopped just shy of Coon ridge (around 11,300 ft) and made some mellow turns in the upper glades.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: Mostly sunny at 11AM becoming mostly cloudy by early afternoon. Very light SW breeze with intermittent snow flurries, but no accumulation.
Snowpack: Total depth depended on elevation and aspect, but around 60-70cm in the upper glades with 3-5cm new snow on a 5cm sun crust. The crust was more pronounced on southerly aspects and became less noticeable with the slightest tilt to the east. No signs of instability on 30-32 degree slopes.

Date of Observation: 12/15/2021
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gunsight Pass. Northerly facing slopes between 9,000ft and 10,400.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: Felt like I was hanging out at an airport or something with jet engines running all day. The wind was generally light where I spent most of my day, but as soon as you get out of any cover it was full-on, strong down-valley winds. Lots of snow transport and wind erosion.
Snowpack: Around 10,000ft the HS averaged 70cm in the flats. Primary traveled on northerly facing slopes where it was easy to identify the layer of weak facets on the ground. Unforutnily they are just an arms reach way, or the layer is easy to identify with a ski pole. The mid-pack slab was around 4f hard over F hard facets The recent storm had deposited 3 to 4″ of new snow and the ski pen averaged around 25cm. In several places, there was small surface hoar just under the new snow, that somehow survived the early wind.

The persistent slab avalanche problem felt stubborn to trigger and lacked obvious signs of instability, without some extra effort. Usually, an extra couple of hard jumps could initiate a collapse where the snowpack had been undisturbed. The few bigger and steeper slopes I got close too, turned out to have already avalanched during last week’s cycle and had not yet accumulated enough new snow to become a problem again. From a distance, I wasn’t able to identify which slopes had or hadn’t previously avalanched.

Date of Observation: 12/15/2021
Name: Than Acuff

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: BTL, NE aspect

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: Only old ones
Weather: Low 20’s and snowy some periods of heavy snow. Winds pretty subdued aside from the occasional 15 mph gust which started from the SW on our way out but shifted to NW. Could hear it honking up high.
Snowpack: New snow overnight about 5″, 3″ fell while we were out there. Light and awesome. There was a crust on easterly aspects out in the open below the new snow.

Date of Observation: 12/13/2021
Name: Cormac Zachar

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Skinned up the normal route via the woods to the south of the bowls. In the meadow approach, there were collapses and wumphing with almost every couple of steps. Several collapses propagated significant distances outward from the skin track. Once out of the flats, no obvious instabilities were present up to the ridge. Plenty of surface hoar everywhere the sun was hitting. Our skin track only crossed over 30 degrees once, and we didn’t test avy terrain on the descent either. Skied down the skiers left then right of second bowl… No signs of instability while skiing, but only crossed over 30 degrees once and for no more than a hundred feet.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: No new slides. Skinned past the previously reported skier-triggered avalanche in Convex Corner. Appeared to have a 2-3 ft deep crown and ran approx. 75 yards (D1.5?). Avy path was almost identical to the area of transition between <30 and 30-35 degree slopes on the upper third of Convex.
Weather: Sunny, low 30s.
Snowpack:

Date of Observation: 12/13/2021
Name: Alan Bernholtz

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Poverty Gulch area. This observation confirms the forecast from this morning.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: Several old avalanches were observed. Some ran during the storm and some ran at the end of the storm. All were old.
Many cracks were observed on steeper slopes as well as low angle. We only heard one collapse during our hike.
Weather: Mostly clear, a few high clouds, strong solar radiation, no wind and estimated temp around 35
Snowpack: At the top of the skin track we found 100cm HS. 70 cm HST, 4-5 cm of sun or temp crust and 25 cm of facets. Surface hoar covered all aspects.

Date of Observation: 12/13/2021
Name: Mark Robbins

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Up regular anthracites skinner to the saddle, skied off the southside a ways before aborting, skied out 7’s then down around the skin track

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: already reported by Zach K.
Weather: calm, sunny, warm
Snowpack: widespread surface hoar from 10,000′ to 10,500′ or so.
Skied south facing snow, descending from the saddle at 11,200′, at 11 am, which was a saturated sticky mess.
And the wind got into 7’s bowl, mixture of wind stiffened snow and supportive wind board.
No new signs of instability, just all the previously reported widespread avalanches and cracks.

Date of Observation: 12/12/2021
Name: Frank Stern

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gunsight Pass Road from Slate River to 9,500′

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Westernmost Climax Chute ran (D2), multiple D1 avalanches on 40 degree slopes on N aspects.
Weather: Sunny
Snowpack: About 70 cm snow, some settling, shooting cracks.

Date of Observation: 12/12/2021
Name: Nick Couts

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Our party was starting at Wash gulch TH and crossing below coney’s proper to climb up the refill uptrack on the North end of coney’s. From there, crossing over Anthracite Mesa skiing the W aspect down and skinning back to Slate TH.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: From the North end of Coney’s we spotted a few slides. The first looked to be skier triggered just below the start of “first bowl” Maybe D1.5/2? It appears the slab propagated to skier left and ran along the adjacent rib. Based on the pair of tracks they appeared to have veered skiers left to dodge the debris. Further below two other smaller pockets had released on the convex nose where First Bowl and Convex Corner merge together. Possibly remote triggers from the four pairs of tracks coming down first bowl and convex corner.

Weather: Bluebird, moderate sustained W/NW wind at the top of the Coney’s/A Mesa.
Snowpack: On our route up, there was lots of whumpfing and shooting cracks, and once we got into the uptick saw loads of previous cracks and collapses, some smaller in the recent storm layer and some stepping down to the basal faceting. Our descent down the W side or A mesa saw no sign of recent avalanches or experience and whumpfing. Depth was ~75cm, top half of snowpack was about F and lower half to the ground was about 4F.