Date of Observation: 03/27/2022
Name: Cosmo Langsfeld
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Cement creek road, ~1/2 mile past winter trailhead
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Wet slide on road below the ranch. Came off of east ish facing cliffs above the road. Slid on or gouged to the ground.
Weather: 50 degrees in the shade at 3pm
Date of Observation: 03/23/2022
Name: Zach Guy
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Inbounds CBMR
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A D1, presumably windslab, ran this afternoon out of M Face on Whetstone.
Weather: Windy is an understatement. Impressive amount of blowing snow off of all peaks. Some plumes were blowing towards the southeast (White), some were blowing towards the southwest (Axtell, Bellview) and anything in between.
Snowpack: Seemed like a lot of ablating snow more than loading. Little eddies and concave features were getting drifted in with 3″ to 6″ of slabby snow. Abrupt road cuts had 12″ to 18″ localized drifts behind them.
Date of Observation: 03/22/2022
Name: Whit Gilliam
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Went up to ski N Teo, but the wind was crazy! Opted to stay lower on the South face and drop in. Picked a line above some small cliffs to sneak through to the lower main S face. I made one test turn on the edge of the slope we planned to ski and the whole face cracked all the way up! Slab was about 6″ thick, but hard to tell for sure, we didn’t hang around to check. Let’s just say we confirmed the forecasted wind slab on S faces! Thankful for this outcome!!!!!!
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Wind slab, S, ~12,900ft, didn’t run
Weather: Windy as heck
Date of Observation: 03/20/2022
Name: Ben Pritchett
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Hunter Creek
Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: We saw no recent avalanches other than some minor loose shedding out of very steep rocky slopes.
Weather: Chilly start with quick warm up late morning. Scattered high-thin clouds.
Snowpack: We found an average snowpack depth around 200cm in wind-sheltered terrain near treeline. Above treeline the snowpack is highly variable with many wind-swept areas only 100-150cm deep.
Surprisingly we only experienced one booming collapse on slab that was softer in the afternoon than when we travelled over it during the morning. This occurred with two sleds close together on a westerly-facing slope around 2:30pm. The slope was just too low angle to avalanche. Otherwise the snowpack stayed eerily quiet all day.
Snow surfaces moistened below 10,000′, but we found no fresh meltwater at the snow surface at upper elevations.
Date of Observation: 03/14/2022
Name: Benjamin Schmatz
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: In the Gothic Townsite
Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: 8/8 sunny warm
Snowpack: Reactive Layer found 55cm from the snow surface at the interface between the christmas storm and the long dry spell. No surprise there.
Melting precipitation particles near surface. Boot pen was 42 cm. Snowpack still mostly dry apart from some melt freeze crusts that have formed in February.
The proximity of the weak layer to the boot pen depth is concerning.
Photos:
Date of Observation: 03/13/2022
Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: NE Aspect @10,400ft
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Human Triggered Slab Avalanche, NE Aspect, at 10,400ft, ran 400 vertical feet (estimated), 170-200 feet wide (estimated), crown 18-24 in (estimated)
Date of Observation: 03/12/2022
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Snowmobiled out to union park
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: East side of park cone
Date of Observation: 03/12/2022
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Whetstone
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Add these to your collection
Date of Observation: 03/12/2022
Name: Brad Wagner
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: East out of Ohio Creek winter trailhead toward the lower portions of Carbon
Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: 30 degrees, full sun, light and variable wind
Snowpack: wind buffed and drifted on lower slopes. Started tour at 8800 feet and approached a scree field and started to go up on the scree field. measurements of the slope were between 12-18 degrees and there were many (more than four) instances of collapsing and “whoompfs”. We got to 9200 feet, felt one more collapse, turned tail and headed back to the vehicle.
Date of Observation: 03/09/2022
Name: billy barr
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic Townsite
Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: Light snow starting before midnight and continuing all night but with just 2½” new and water 0.16″ No wind and overcast sky while cool with the low 7F and current 11. Snowpack is at 67″.
