Date of Observation: 11/23/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Baldy, E and NE aspects N/BTL

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: We ski triggered a couple of slow-moving facet sluffs that entrained the top 6” of facets on a sheltered, near treeline slope.
Weather: Winds and clouds started increasing around noon. No real snow transport, just some facets rolling and bouncing along the snow surface.
Snowpack: Got one crack in a small hard drift that propagated about 6 feet. Snow surfaces varied from hard drifts to wind crusts to sastrugi to cohesionless ~2 mm facets.

Date of Observation: 11/22/2022
Name: Jack Caprio

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: South Fork Crystal River. Traveled on S, SE, and N aspects up to 12,500’

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: 2 small skier triggered wind slabs. 1 was about 5-8” deep, and traveled about 250’. The other was about 3-4 inches deep, and traveled about 100’.

Weather: Cold and clear. Light winds with moderate gusts out of the west.

Snowpack: In the terrain we traveled, the wind slabs were reactive in north facing terrain. We encountered wind slabs of similar size and hardness on S and SE facing terrain and they seemed to be much more stubborn.

Date of Observation: 11/15/2022
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Upper Slate. E to NE, 9,700 to 12,000ft.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Several small sluffs or possibly a couple very small wind slabs above treeline.

Weather: Partly cloudy ski in the morning becoming mostly cloudy early afternoon. Calm to light winds and cold temps.

Snowpack: Around an inch of very low-density new snow for the most part, becoming a few inches of new snow above 11,000ft. A little bit of fresh drifting above treeline on the most wind-exposed terrain. Pushed one very small wind slab that was isolated to right at the ridgeline.

The old hard slabs that are hiding out on some previously wind-loaded terrain features didn’t show any obvious signs of instability today, or this past Sunday. In general, as the snowpack continues to weaken with the cold weather, the interface between those old slabs and the facets below continues to become less pronounced. Both the grain size and hardness are often changing gradually between the layers of snow vs abruptly like when that avalanche problem was fresh.

The skiing is still surprisingly good in some areas.

Date of Observation: 11/12/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Upper Slate, traveled on N, NE, and E aspects to 12,200’.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: None
Weather: High thin clouds, calm winds. Inverted temps this morning.
Snowpack: Not much to add onto yesterday’s obs. Snow surface is faceting quickly. We got several moderate sized collapses near treeline on previously cross-drifted east aspects. Got moderate propagating test results on similar NE facing slopes, 2’ deep on the 11/3 facet layer (see video). Also traveled through a lot of terrain that was lacking any kind of previous drifting or slab formation or signs of instability. We did get one collapse on an east facing, sheltered BTL slope, where a thin crust (11/3) helped propagate the collapse about a foot deep in an otherwise soft snowpack. I doubt this is an issue on sheltered slopes, but it highlights how collapsible that crust is.

Date of Observation: 11/11/2022
Name: Travis Colbert

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Pittsburg to the top of Cascade. 9,200-11,600. NE to SE to SW.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A few small point releases in the new snow in rugged terrain from Schuylkill to Daisy Pass, but nothing significant.
Weather: Blue sky, light to moderate NW winds, temps in the teens and 20s.
Snowpack: Soft and deep(ish) on the north aspects, with some underlying, collapsible crusts observed while pole probing. 4″ or so of new snow on firm crust on the south aspects. One small collapse in flat, east facing willowy area. Coverage was a little thin in places, but overall, nice skiing!

Date of Observation: 11/05/2022
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Toured from Pittsburg to the bottom of Baxter Basin.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: none observed. Visibility was poor.
Weather: Overcast skies, foggy conditions and very light snowfall.
Snowpack: Only toured up to 10,600′ on easterly and northeasterly low-angle terrain. Each drifted test slope we encountered collapsed and cracked (generally east and northeast aspects). The drifted snow failed on small-grained facets buried on Wednesday night. Slabs were up to 4f hard and 16 inches thick. We also encountered a thin (5mm) crust on the surface that appeared to be from a short period of rain Friday night or Saturday morning. It was present up to 10,600′ where we stopped uphill travel.

Date of Observation: 11/04/2022
Name: Mark Robbins

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: sledded up wash gulch to paradise divide, skinned up looker’s right side of WSC bowl, skied main WSC bowl below the rocky chutes

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: no new avalanche activity
Weather: cold, in and out of clouds all morning with minimal snowfall, moderate winds out of the north effectively transporting new snow
Snowpack: 8-10 inches new snow. See photos for evidence of wind transport – partially covering skin track in between laps, and crossloading of west facing gullies in the bowl

Date of Observation: 11/2/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Driving Kebler Pass

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: Sunny, breezy, mild temps. A few snow plumes off of the high peaks this morning.
Snowpack: The current surface is our most pronounced and widespread weak layer to date. There is continuous snow coverage across most West to North to East aspects at all elevations. The southern quadrant has patchier coverage above treeline and is mostly melted off below treeline. Below treeline, snow depth averages about 10 inches in the shade. The snowpack is .5-.7mm developing facets on steep northerlies, with large surface hoar in open areas below treeline. On southerlies and flat terrain, the snowpack was wet grains throughout, with no obvious weak layer development.

Date of Observation: 10/29/2022
Name: Turner Petersen

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Toured from Scofield pass with Whitney and Lawson

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Natural slab avalanche around 11,800ft N face in Halloween bowl. Assuming it ran on Wednesday.
Weather: Sunny, upper 30’s
Snowpack: 35-40cm?

Date of Observation: 10/26/2022
Name: billy barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic townsite

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: Snow did not start until around 4 a.m. and was moderate from 5-6:30 but now light with 2½” new and water 0.18″. Cloud cover obscured with the low, and current, a mild 27F after yesterday’s 6F (a record low for that date but only back to 2000). Total snow this winter (i.e. the past couple days) is 8½” with water content of 0.86″. Snowpack currently at 6″. Wind is light at 2-4 mph from the SW.