Date of Observation: 02/23/2023
Name: Billy Barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic Townsite

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: Easily the biggest factor has been the wind, which has been steady around 8-15 mph SW with regular gusts to 25, while there has been substantial drifting and staying cloudy. The 24 hour new snow total is 7½” with water content a very windy-driven dense 0.72″. Currently cloudy though clouds are showing a little ‘sunrise’ breaking here and there with wind holding steady but a bit lighter at times. The snowpack is at 65½” deep and currently no snow for the past couple hours. I believe there is a chance for clear mild weather come June.

Date of Observation: 02/22/2023
Name: Eric Murrow Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Standard Schuylkill Ridge up track from OBJ. 9,000ft to 10,500ft. Primarily NE-E

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Skier triggered a small 12″ storm slab on a NE facing slope below treeline. Skier triggered a couple of small wind slabs on SE and NE near treeline.

Weather: Started out with a blizzard. Then it got kind of nice for an hour. Then the blowing snow became intense and exfoliating as the sun temporarily poked through to say hi. Roller Coaster

Snowpack: New snow was in the 10 to 12″ range. Shortly after the morning blizzard the top couple of inches was reactive as a storm slab and produced some very small natural avalanches BTL. By the time we got into steep terrain those storm slabs had already become less reactive. Nearing ridgeline we started managing and triggering wind slabs. The blowing snow was intense. We triggered another 12″ storm slab on the descent.

Date of Observation: 02/22/2023
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Afternoon rec tour on Mount Emmons, generally NE aspects to 11,300′

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A pair of natural wind slabs ran today in two of the Climax Chutes, debris ran to the chokes, about 1900′ vert in at least one of them. Couldn’t see the other. Skier triggered a thin storm slab on a steep, sheltered terrain feature, about 6″ thick. Also triggered a sluff that gouged about 18″ deep to the ground through weak facets on a slope that avalanched in January and has since remained shallow and rotting.
Weather: Unpleasant. Significant blowing snow at all elevations, from the southwest where we were. Heavy snowfall around noon fizzled to nil this afternoon. Decreasing temperature trend and some periods of visibility this afternoon after the cold front.
Snowpack: 8″ to 10″ of new snow. There was a mid-storm density change that produced localized cracking in sheltered terrain, and longer shooting cracks in leeward terrain, where drifts were up to 18″ thick where we traveled. There were drifts near ridgeline and near valley bottom.

Date of Observation: 02/22/2023
Name: billy barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic

Weather: Snow started just before midnight and was steady while light to moderate, with 5½” new and water 0.39″. A steady moderate SW wind overnight. Currently overcast with light snow and 6-10 SW wind gusting to 15 and snow has been drifting. Snowpack is at 61″. Yesterday’s high was a very warm 38F and for today the low is the current 23º. A dense snowfall.

Date of Observation: 02/21/2023
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Viewed from Mt. CB

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A handful of D1-1.5 wind slabs from the past 24 to 36 hours from above treeline terrain on Axtell, Gothic, and Ruby Range.
Weather: Partly cloudy. Generally light wind drifting with a few periods of moderate transport on some terrain. 2″ to 3″ of new snow in the past 24 hours on Mt. CB.
Snowpack: Near treeline slopes with moderate-sized fetches had fresh drifting overnight, 4″ to 16″ thick, 4F hard, reactive to ski cuts.

Photos:

Date of Observation: 02/20/2023
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Mt Emmons E-S-SW. 9,400-11,900ft.

Avalanches: Recent large avalanche in Red Coon Bowl. Best Guess is that it ran on Sunday or early Monday. East aspect 11,800ft. Estimated 1.5 feet deep and 400 feet wide. Blurry iPhone photo attached.

Weather: S1 through the AM hours with 1.5 to 2″ of new snow by noon. NTL elevations had continuous blowing snow with moderate to strong winds during the AM hours. Poor visibility. The weather started to improve in the early afternoon. With better visibility snow plumes could be seen on the higher peaks at times.

Snowpack: Targeted a few areas for another look before we go into the next storm. Since January, the upper snowpack has become layered and more complicated. There are several layers of crusts and facets that could lead to persistent slab avalanche behavior during the upcoming loading event. In the areas I checked around 11,200ft, E and SE aspects were the most concerning for the future PSa issues in the upper 40cm of the snowpack. I didn’t look at any south aspects. The crusts in the upper 40cm of the snowpack on a SW aspect were 2 to 5cm thick and notably stronger than those same interfaces on the SE aspects.

I took another look at the recently triggered avalanche in Red Lady Glades. As previously reported, this avalanche released on a thin layer of facets above a crust. More specifically there was a stack of crusts that likely formed between about February 9th to February 13th. Between these 3 crusts, there are layers of small facets of varying weakness. The avalanche failed in this stack of crusts and ran on the lower of the 3 crusts. Currently, on wind-loaded slopes and during the next loading event, these interfaces look capable of producing persistent slab avalanche activity.

Of other note was the continued blowing snow at NTL elevations through mid-day.

Date of Observation: 02/18/2023
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Cement Creek to Hunter Hill to Carbonate Hill, various aspects to 12,700′

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Nothing new today. Got a closer look at the large (D2.5) persistent slab reported by Ben yesterday. I estimate the crown was up to 5 feet thick and pencil hard, based on debris chunks. Hard to say what weak layer it failed on, it looks like the bedsurface is a very hard windboard layer, and there were several layers of the wind board onion that peeled off further downslope.
Weather: Few to scattered clouds. Moderate winds above 12,000′ caused light wind drifting in a few areas.
Snowpack: No signs of instability except I triggered a couple of tiny 1″-2″ wind slabs that were forming from today’s blowing snow. I targeted a shallow area on a SE-facing slope above treeline and got hard, propagating results on depth hoar near the ground below a 90 cm, 1F slab. A couple of tests near and above treeline produced non-propagating failures in the recent wind slabs and no failures on the storm interface. There’s about 3 to 5″ of settled storm snow below treeline that’s been redistributed by northerly winds near and above treeline.

Date of Observation: 02/17/2023
Name: Zach Kinler and Eric Murrow

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Top of the World down to Gothic CG and back. 9,600′-11,500′.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Observed a couple of small wet loose avalanches running from rocky, steep south-facing terrain near Mt. Bellview around 12:00 pm. D1 in size.
Weather: Clear skies and calm winds. Below zero temps at the trailhead in the morning gave way to temps at or just above freezing once out of the inversion in the valley floor.
Snowpack: We traveled primarily on slopes facing E-SE-S along the GMT course. No signs of instability were observed underfoot. Open areas near tree line had variable thin wind crusts while sheltered areas were lightly faceted and soft. Snow surfaces on SE and S slopes were moist by midday. HS on an east-facing slope at 10,100 was 185cm. A profile of the upper snowpack on this slope produced 1 hard propagating result and 1 non-propagating result in an ECT on the late January interface. This interface was a thin, 4-finger hard facet layer below a 1-finger slab.

Date of Observation: 02/17/2023
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Mineral Point, targeting wind slab instabilities on east to south aspects to 11,600′. Our plan was to cross under the south face of Mineral early morning before it got too warm. After several delays this morning (2 dead car batteries!), we didn’t cross beyond the most exposed sunbaked terrain until 11 a.m., which in hindsight, was cutting it too close for the type of terrain that we were on.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A large natural wind slab released off the south face of Mineral around 11:15 a.m., triggered by solar warming or perhaps a very tiny wet loose. The debris washed over part of our skin track that we had set an hour earlier.
Evidence of a widespread storm slab cycle in the Slate during the storm, along with numerous wind slabs in Poverty Gulch that ran after the storm, likely during yesterday’s northerly winds, up to D2 in size. See photos.
Weather: Clear, calm winds. Rapid warming; Double puffy snowmobile ride (-20F at TH), down to sun shirts once we started skinning. At one point, I looked over and my partner’s bare butt was showing, frantically trying to remove his long underwear. haha.
Snowpack: North winds did a lot of damage in Poverty Gulch, with wind slab formation scattered across all elevations. Wind slabs are easy to recognize: smooth, stiff snow (6″ to 12″ thick, 4F to 1F) below rollovers and in gullies, in contrast to softer, rippled sastrugi elsewhere. Wind slab feedback was stubborn underfoot. I snowmobiled and ski stomped on over half a dozen suspect wind-loaded rollovers without any signs of instability or cracking. However, I could produce cracks up to 5 feet while stomping on slopes undercut by the skin track. I also got easy test results on wind-drifted slopes (ECTP1, ECTPV). All of the wind slabs in this area, and my test results, failed on a low-density precip particle layer (non-persistent). Tests on the 2/13 storm interface were unreactive. I tested an east-facing slope near treeline which had a thin crust above facets at the storm interface.