Weather: Moderate snowfall all day S-2, very light SE winds aven at tree line and ridgetop. Suprising. Temps dropped as we climbed from -6°C at 10,000 to -8°C at 11,800.
Snowpack: 35-45cms of new snow over crusts and NSFs. Right side up snowfall with an instability noted in the top 3 cm which wanted to run off on steeper stuff. Crust was very stout in some areas, breaker in others.
1 small collapse noted on the way up near a large solo tree. Likely the intermittent crust in the area breaking. Jumping on small cornices at the 11,500 ridge produced only minor slufing on the steep E facing slope. There may have been a natural on the slope, but poor vis limited ob. No other signs of instability on slopes up to 32°

Avalanches:
Weather: Light snow Sunday picking up just after dark. Steady moderate to heavy snow overnight with currently moderate snow and obscured cloud cover. This is for 5:30 (sweep time is 7 and i will update about 7:30 depending on how many days it takes me to ski to the office). There was 4″ yesterday and 11½” so far last night so 15½” new with total water and even 1.00″ water- still holding above average density. Snow pack at the winters deepest 60″. No wind (thankfully) and no visibilty.

More at 7:30 or so. billy
Snowpack:

Avalanches: SS-N-R1/2-D/1.5/2-U. Observed to avalanches failing naturally around 1pm on ENE aspects at 9,300ft. SS-ASc-R2-D2-O, SS-ASc-R1-D1-O, triggered two other slabs on Easterly aspects, one failing over a crust facet crust sandwich on a road cut and the other failing on a thin persistent slab formed in January.
Weather: Snowing lightly all day, mostly S1. No wind and no evidence of wind from last night in the valley bottom.
Snowpack: 13-14″ new overnight in Gothic and about 10-12″ closer to the snodgrass trailhead. Shovel tilt tests would produce failures mid storm on graupel, we never found enough slab in this storm snow to propagate into anything.

Where this storm snow was resting over fist hard weak facets there wasn’t any significant avalanche problem, yet. Where the storm snow was adding weight to older persistent weak layers, they were being overloaded and aiding in propagation. We observed some scary crust facet crust sandwiches on south and sunny east slopes formed during the small mid-January storms. Or decaying thin persistent slabs on other easterly aspects. Both of these oder persistent weak layers aided in propagation and we could easily trigger slabs on road cuts or steep slopes with this snowpack structure.

SS-ASc-R2-D2-O Human triggered D2 slab failing in persistent weak layers formed mid January. 2 other natural slabs that failed around 1pm could be seen further down valley

Small road cut, soft slab was human triggered and failed on a crust facet crust sandwich formed earlier in January.

Avalanches:
Weather: Y’all saw it, warm dumptown cooling in afternoon. Little to no wind.
Snowpack: HS on Snodgrass 155cm at 10k ENE. 35-45cm new right side up but the grauple it rests upon reacts easily (CTE). Snodgrass team observed 2 SH layers 45 and 51cms from the surface but they did not propagate on ECT testing. Generally F-4F-F structure on Snodgrass. At 10,100 ENE we did observe spidering cracks on a 41degree convex slope triggered from a recent skin track propagating 150 feet. It did not run but was a solid teachable moment for the youths.
Smith Hill reported widespread and repeated collapses throughout the entire tour, particularly when multiple people were stacked closely.

Avalanches:
Weather: Snowing all day, mostly S1+ until about 3:30PM when prices rate picked up significantly. Nearly no wind. About -6ºC all day.
Snowpack: Deep. SkiPen in the skin track of 30cm to 40cm – deeper at higher elevations. Surface was light and dry, low density snow. At treeline, there was about 50cm of recent snow, which got progressively stiffer to the old / new snow interface. The new snow didn’t feel like it was adding much of a load or becoming reactive until about 3:30PM… Then it seemed like the scales tipped. The storm snow was becoming more cohesive. I saw more cracking and I heard more whumpfing. I had multiple CTM11 50cm down, below the sun crusts which represent the old/snow interface. A PST didn’t produce dramatic results, but the slope angle was in the low 20s. We managed a good day of low-angle pow skiing, but I am thankful to have tomorrow off – I think the snow will be much more active.

Avalanches: lots of high speed sluffiing, full track D1.5
Weather: Overcast skies all day, Snowing S2 throughout the day, moderate S SW winds, Kicking up to Strong @ 16:30.

17″ overnight, 7″ during day. Storm: 23″ / 1.65 (includes settlement)
Snowpack: Recent Observations: (Surface, structure, cracking, collapsing, PWLs, Ski Pen)
10:00-15:30 Storm right side up & generally well bonded to old surfaces & no cracking. Except a SS-D1 above Hollywood & Vine (see below)
~15:30 started seeing tiny D1’s with up to 25ft propagation ~15cm deep >37*

East: No sloughing via ski cuts through swill, Explosive triggered & skier triggered sloughs widespread through EBM to Thin line. Some up to D1.5 & running fast & far within storm layer.

South: Wind Slab D1 ran on old MfCr, 50cm deep all of HST (F -4f @ bottom) 30 feet wide, 40* @ ridgline above Hollywood & Vine. Confined by small start zone.
Sunny shoulder West –SE Soft Slab with variable shear quality on old crust interface, some SP others well bonded.

West: Fast moving sloughs reactive via ski cuts. Sunset L flushed D 1.5 with deposition well into the top of the Round Two trees. Far Out sloughed top to bottom by Big Trigger.

Avalanches:
Weather: Light snow Saturday (1½”) but steady, moderate to heavy and dense snow overnight, letting up around 5 a.m. The 24 hour total is 13″ with 0.89″ water. Snowpack at 49½” while temp. stays mild (low is the current 16F after high of 37F Saturday. No sign of slides but limited visibility. billy
Snowpack:

Avalanches: Heard a whump while passing by Washingtong Gulch T.H.
Weather: Trailhead in the morning: S1 snowfall, but dissipated once we were below Snodgrass. Calm all the way up Gothic road. Warm under overcast skies with very short periods of S-1 snowfall. Within 1.5 miles of Schoefield pass, encountered S1 snowfall and moderate winds, which were concentrated in the narrow valley south of Schoefield Pass. Winds transported enough snow to fill in our 2 to 4 inch skin track broken 10 minutes earlier. Once we were back in East River Valley Bottom, calm and no snow. Encountered light winds at trailhead at the end of the tour.
Snowpack: Trailhead: trace of snow at outset of tour (last 12 hours).
Rustlers Gulch to 1.5 miles of Schoefield Pass: 1 to 3 inches of snow (last 36 hours). In this upper zone, SW aspect had 2 inch sun crust, while SE had new snow (last 36 hours) on sun crust.