Date of Observation: 01/09/2021
Name: Ben Ammon

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Snodgrass
Aspect: North, North East, East
Elevation: BTL

Avalanches: Starting to be able to ski trigger Loose Dry on steep North-facing rollovers.
Snowpack: No propagating test results, but we observed a couple localized, stubborn collapses in previously untraveled terrain. One triggered by the fourth person in the track, and a few triggered by repeated stomps in the same spot. Upper snowpack continues to lose strength.

Date of Observation: 01/09/2021
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location:
Aspect: North East
Elevation: 9,700 to 10,800

Weather: Partly Cloudy, light winds. Funny seeing overcast skys and maybe a couple flakes over Mt CB and clear sky over the Ruby Range. How often does that happen?

Snowpack: The early December weak layer is widespread in the terrain. While slabs above that weak-layer are specific to cross-loaded terrain at lower elevations, or the lee sides of ridge-lines at NTL elevations. Not all terrain features with those common characteristics hold a slab, so you could argue that the slab is isolated in the terrain. Isolated and Stubborn…

We observed one collapse in a flat area. Otherwise no obvious signs of instability. Lots of tracks through all sorts of terrain features in Coneys and previous high traffic area. More ski tracks are also showing up in areas slightly further up valley that get a little less traffic. Still a few features of potential concern, otherwise all those tracks didn’t produce any results.

A few pits on a ENE aspect at ~10,600ft and on a 33-degree slope. Produced: SC fracture results on small column CT tests, and ECTN results on larger column tests, failing on 12/10. This location was sheltered from the wind and held a faceting 4F- slab over the early December facets.

Date of Observation: 01/08/2021
Name: David Bumgarner

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Washington Gulch
Aspect: North, North East, East
Elevation: 9800 – 10800

Avalanches: None Observed
Weather: Temp: mid 20’s
Sky: Clear
Wind: Calm
Precip: none
Snowpack: We toured past the Coney’s Ski area and got multiple shooting cracks and collapses on steeper terrain features, upper 20 degree features and even a couple in flat areas. All of these areas had not seen much traffic (probably none) this season. Still feels tender out there! HS ranged from 70cm to 85cm in areas probed.

Photos:

Date of Observation: 01/08/2021
Name: D K

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location:
Aspect: South, South West
Elevation: 11k

Avalanches: One fresh looking D2 off a southeast aspect of Hunter Hill.

Weather: Bluebird. Winds around 15 ATL
Snowpack: Initiated several collapses while setting a skintrack and skiing down in the vicinity of the track on S and SW aspects near treeline. Collapsing and cracks went up to 40′ on the largest. HS was about 80cm in sheltered areas and was punchy and unsupportive about 20% of the time

Photos:

Date of Observation: 01/08/2021
Name: Travis Colbert

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Farris Creek
Aspect: South, South West, West
Elevation: 9,000-12,200

Avalanches: Old debris from the summit of Double Top N, in NE terrain. No new avalanches observed.
Weather: Blue sky, very little wind. Zero degrees in the AM, felt quite warm in the sun as we ascended…
Snowpack: Pretty much terrible. Ran the full spectrum between breakable crust to bottomless facets. Pretty much everything except supportable, soft snow. Large, widespread surface hoar. A little bit of supportable crust on steep south facing slopes where the snow was shallow (10cm); on those same slopes with deeper snow, punchy and weird, with shallow wind slabs just below the ridges. HS ranged from 0 – 85cm, with the average being 45 – 85cm. Had the opportunity to down climb a little maroon formation where the HS was 0. Also had the opportunity to perfect what I am calling the rocking side-slip in a shallow gully where the crust was particularly breakable and the baby aspens were especially tight. Finally, got the chance to wallow through the deepest and least supportable snow for that last mile or so along Farris Creek, back to our skin track. Exposed a pocket gopher when I punched through into the stream near the bottom; he/she seemed terrified. All in all, a good adventure in bad snow. The skin track is in if anyone wants to give it a whirl and ski a different aspect, or the same ones we did if my description was compelling.

Date of Observation: 01/07/2021
Name: David Bumgarner

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Snodgrass – Upper Open Shot between 3rd bowl & Abbey Lane
Aspect: North East
Elevation: 10,500

Avalanches: None observed
Weather: Temp: Mid 20’s
Sky: Few
Wind: Calm
Precip: none
Snowpack: Snow Pit:
Aspect: NE
Elevation: 10,500
Slope Angle: 28

HS: 84cm
Multiple CT Moderate results (12,12, 14) Broken fracture in facets 49cm down (35cm)
ECTN
Mid pack is losing strength and faceting out

Only had one sign of instability throughout tour. Had multiple shooting cracks near a steeper roll near the bottom of our first fun in a shallow area.

Photos:

Date of Observation: 01/07/2021
Name: Ross Matlock

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: 2nd bowl
Aspect: North East
Elevation: Coneys

Avalanches: No avalanches seen or any sign of instability
Weather: Clear baby, some would say warm!!
Snowpack: In a word weak! I feel we are teetering on full facet top to bottom. What was perhaps a supportably snow pack, is slowly turning to a weak unconsolidated, trap door facet monster. Its nothing unusual for us, but with the surface hoar developing and continued cold temps, we are setting ourselves up for potential problems with more snow load.