Avalanches: See video. Remotely triggered a soft slab 18” thick on a northeast aspect above treeline as I was stepping out of my skis to dig a pit on a low angle slope. Heard a large, rumbling collapse and the slide failed ~300 feet up slope. SS-AFr-R2-D1.5-I. Had good views of a lot of terrain from up high, and spotted a handful of natural loose snow and soft slab avalanches from Sunday night’s storm, almost exclusively on NE to NW aspects, and mostly N/ATL. All slab avalanches are shown in photos below. Two slabs showed impressive propagation given their slab depth. I assume all of these ran on the storm interface, roughly 10-15” deep. Saw a couple small wet loose run today on SE aspects NTL.
Weather: Relatively cool temps up high. Light SE winds switched to light West winds, no transport. Clear skies built to scattered cumulus by mid-day, and decreased again in the afternoon.
Snowpack: Near and above treeline, 35 to 45 cm of dense storm snow (F+ to 4F-) was fairly evenly distributed across the terrain with some previous and relatively minor wind transport from SW winds. Anywhere that this snow was on a crust (E to S to SW aspects traveled), I was not able to produce any signs of instability on steep slopes or suspect rollovers, with ski cuts or stomping while skinning. Got ECTN or ECTX results on this interface, and Moderate Q2 failures in compression tests. (tested S and E aspects ATL). East aspects held a fairly thick crust at this interface (2-4” thick), with large facets below interrupted by some percolation columns (ECTN results on this layer). I was worried about this structure as the slope tilted towards ENE and the crust became softer and thinner. On NE aspects the storm snow was over ~1mm near surface facets above and below a thin wind crust. Snow surfaces became moist on SE to S to SW aspects today at higher elevations, with some minor rollerballs above treeline in rocky terrain and a few small wet loose near treeline.

Schuylkill Ridge. NE aspect NTL. SS-N-R2-D2-I

Schuylkill Peak. NW aspect ATL. SS-N-R1-D1-I

Remotely triggered soft slab near Cascade Peak. Star shows trigger location.  SS-AFr-R2-D1.5-I

Richmond Peak. N aspect ATL. L/SS-N-R1-D1-I

Mt. Justice. NE aspect ATL. SS-N-R1-D1-I

Snow pit on an E aspect ATL. 2-4″ crust with very large depth hoar chains below, with percolation columns into this layer.

Extended column test on a South aspect ATL

Natural wet loose today below Cascade Peak. SE aspect NTL

Climax Chutes on Mt. Emmons. NE aspect NTL. SS-N-R2-D2-I. Ran almost full track ~1800 vertical feet.

Avalanches:
Weather: Snow began Sunday mid day with warm temps and dense snow. High temps Sunday 30F/24F. Winds
on Sunday were South 20’s gust to 58mph. Winds today SW and continued 20’s G-40’s. Snow S1
with periods of S2-3 throughout the day. High temps 24F/14F. Though weather station remained
SW real time Obs from the Westwall was showing some NW winds.
Snowpack: New Snow is bonded well to old surfaces. No signs of windslabs, a few cracks up to 6’ in front of skis
but slabs not developed. Minor sluffing in just the top few inches not entraining much of the storm
snow. The March 6th crust is thinner on due west and very stout on any southerly aspects. The
March 6 is the same as the Feb 14 & 22 crust and have mostly all become one. There is a fair bit of
variability with this crust especially on due west aspects. In some places 1 thin (1-2”) crust with
facets underneath. In other areas due west there are 2-crusts with facets in between. On any
aspects with any south or even west but open the March 6 Crust is 10-15cm’s thick and is the new
ground.

Avalanches: Encountered soft slab and loose snow avalanches in the new storm snow at all elevation bands today on specific terrain features, all running on the storm interface about 8-10″ deep. All small in size (D1 to D1.5), but some could have knocked you over or dragged you into trees. See photos.
2x SS-N-R1-D1-I in Redwell Basin, N aspect ATL
1x SS-N-R1-D1-I low in Schuykill Ridge, NE aspect BTL
~10x L-N/ASc-R1-D1/1.5-I all elevations of Redwell Basin and Schuykill Ridge. N to NE aspects. Some of these were moist to wet near valley bottom.
Weather: Spring-like unsettled day, with mild temps, broken to overcast skies with a few periods of greenhouse warming and a few intense bursts of snow (S2). 1″ to 2″ of total accumulation. Light SW ridgetop winds, with signs of previous light transport but none observed on tour.
Snowpack: 15 cm of storm snow at valley bottom, 22 cm in a wind sheltered ridgetop location. Drifts up to 30 cm on NE aspect NTL.
SE aspects NTL held ~ 60-70cm of mostly pencil to knife refrozen wet grains below the storm snow. Storm snow appeared to be decently bonded to this crust, with no signs of instability while ski cutting and traversing steep slopes.
NE aspects below ~10,000 ft beginning to transition towards spring, with partially refreezing wet to moist grains into much of the snowpack, and a supportive crust below the storm snow. Below this elevation, the new snow was especially dense and became moist on all aspects due to greenhousing. We triggered a few small loose snow avalanches running on the crust on steep, NE aspects BTL.
Higher in elevation NTL, the same NE aspect was entirely dry, with a soft (4F-), thin (2cm), dusty melt-freeze crust and 1.5-2mm, F facets above and below the dusty crust. Got one shooting crack ~20 feet long in a lightly windloaded feature, failing on the facets above the crust, and a few other minor cracks on the same layer.
Due north above 10,000 ft (N/BTL) held near-surface facets with no crust below the storm snow; easy to trigger sluffs on steep slopes.

Redwell Basin, N aspect ATL. Natural loose snow and soft slab avalanches.

NE aspect NTL. Dusty, friable crust layer with 1.5-2mm facets above and below. Got a shooting crack above this crust

NE aspect BTL. Small, natural storm slab

NE aspect BTL. Same small, natural storm slab as previous pic, but zoomed out for sense of terrain feature. Also some very small sluffs came off of those cliffs.

Pinwheels and skier triggered wet loose, NE aspect BTL near valley bottom.

Shooting crack on a facet layer below the storm snow. NE aspect NTL.

N aspect N/BTL. Fast moving D1.5 skier triggered loose dry avalanche that ran ~900 vertical. A few smaller sluffs also ran naturally in the same area on similar aspects.

Avalanches:
Weather: Overcast or obscured sky, calm wind, snowing in and out mostly around S1.
Snowpack: 1.5-2″ new by 3pm. New snow was warm and sticky. Falling on a very soft warm crust on lower angled slopes, and NSF or wind buff on steeper slopes over 35 degrees.

Avalanches:
Weather: Warm all day. Thin high clouds cleared by 1100. Strong solar the rest of the day. Calm-light winds. Gloppy skins.
Snowpack: Mid pack HS in second bowl was 150cm. Weak PS snowpack structure. Weak over weaker to the ground. No signs of present instabilities.