Date of Observation: 10/25/2022
Name: Alex R

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Monday afternoon toured up Washington Gulch. One vehicle ahead of us with chains made it to Paradise Divide, but we had a Subaru and parked below Elkton. The road above Elkton had plenty of coverage to ski on. Continued into the center of the South bowl of Baldy and descended along the same route. 14-16” in the upper portion of the South bowl, less in the lower basin. If you skied lightly, you didn’t hit many rocks. The snow in the upper bowl felt supportive, with a consolidated but thin snowpack due to wind and some solar effect on Monday afternoon. Wind loading on the south west ridge about 10,000’.
Drove up again on Tuesday and the road had melted quite a bit below Elkton, but still held about 10” of snow about Elkton. Depending on how much snow we receive in this mid week storm, the road may become difficult for vehicle travel.

Observed avalanche activity: No

Date of Observation: 10/21/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains and Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Satellite imagery of entire zone

Observed avalanche activity: No
Snowpack: See photos of 10/18/22 Sentinal satellite imagery of snow coverage lingering on a few high northerly slopes.

Date of Observation: 10/21/2022
Name: Mark Robbins

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Crystal Pass

Observed avalanche activity: No
Snowpack: See photos of lingering coverage on northerly aspects of Italian, Lambertson, Crystal, and Hunter Hill

Date of Observation: 05/28/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Kebler Pass roadside obs

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: 4 large wet slabs on high northerly aspects that likely ran during last week’s warmup
Photos:

Date of Observation: 05/17/2022
Name: Ben Pritchett

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: near Crested Butte

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: May 16 and 17 a cycle of wet avalanches ran that are gouging deeper into the snowpack. These started as loose avalanches, some from cornice collapses, with some gouging out narrow slabs breaking near the ground. Four of them grew large in size.
Weather: several near-record warm days with non-freezing nights. May 14th was the last night with a good freeze above treeline. Notably, at the Butte snotel (10,150′) the last solid valley freeze was May 5th.
Snowpack: Snowpack mostly gone at lower elevations. The snowpack is remarkably dirty and only continuous at upper elevations. The high elevations of the Ruby Range and Paradise Divide area still hold much more snow than other areas.

Date of Observation: 04/24/2022

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Ruby Range

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Natural slab avalanche on SE side of Richmond
Weather:
Snowpack:

Date of Observation: 04/23/2022

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Up standard route and eventually over to the PG

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Triggered R2 soft slab wind deposit at the very beginning of ski cut. Propagated father down the chute than expected. Crown was ~18″. Debris traveled about 3/4’s of the full path.
Weather: S1-S3 all day. Internment and moderate winds
Snowpack: 10-18″ of storm snow.

Date of Observation: 04/23/2022
Name: billy barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic Townsite

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: Obscured with scattered snow at first then moderate to heavy after midnight with 11″ new and water content 0.86″ The snowpack sits at 48″ after dipping under 35″ late yesterday. Currently light snow with steady wind that carried overnight. Certainly decent surface snow for potential slide activity.

Date of Observation: 04/14/2022

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Standard uptrack to Birthday Bowl (9,000-11,400ft). Descended the northern-most ridge 200 feet and the cut into the main bowl on a ENE aspect.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Triggered a sluff on a steep rollover (around 11,000ft) that knocked me over and carried me 400ft down the slope. Only the new snow (20-25cm) slid on a very firm (and dirty) crust. D1 in size but entrained a decent amount of snow with the toe of the debris 100cm at the deepest; 40-50 feet wide at the widest point. Relatively slow moving, but it feels quite fast when you are in it. Bumped into a couple of small trees, but fortunately just some bruises on my right leg. Deployed my airbag (almost didn’t bring it) midway down and came to a rest on top of the debris. Feeling thankful to be (mostly) unharmed and processing the poor decisions that led up to the slide. After not seeing much movement in the uppermost turns (on more northerly aspect) let down my guard when entering the more easterly (and steeper) terrain. I could have anticipated the firmer bed surface and continued managing for sluff by skiing across the terrain. The more easterly snow, while still dry and soft, was a bit heavier than what we had initially encountered at the top of the ridge. Luckily it was just a good lesson learned and a pole and a ski lost today. I will carry the lesson with me and I will find the gear when the snow melts.
Weather: Overcast with light W/SW winds. Temps in the upper 20s to low 30s.
Snowpack:

Date of Observation: 04/14/2022
Name: jeff banks

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Axtell Zone

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Axtell 4th + 5th Bowl, Numerous D1’s failing on the dirty old snow just below the corniced ridgeline.
Started in ~40º Terrain + lost momentum as the slope lessened.
Weather: Cold + Overcast in AM
Wind picked up again in the late AM
Snowpack: BTL: More Dense from the wind than yesterday. Trees had about 30-40% of snow in their branches on N facing slopes.

Stomped off some fresh cornices at treeline on ~30º slopes

Many Aspects held firm surfaces where the dense wind slab sits. Dense over Dense, lacking an obvious weak layer.