Date of Observation: 01/14/2023
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Upper Slate. 9,500-11,000. E and NE

Observed avalanche activity: No

Weather: A Partly cloudy sky in the morning became mostly cloudy by early afternoon. Generally light winds. Mild temps.

Snowpack: This was just a weather station visit for some site maintenance. Along the way, I didn’t notice any obvious signs of instability. Generally, the snow surface in this area didn’t look partially concerning with the incoming storm, but I eventually started to find a few locations with small surface hoar. A low-angle NE slope at 11,000ft had an HS of 260cm. A meadow near Pittsburg at 9,300ft had an HS of 165cm.

Date of Observation: 01/13/2023
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Ruby Range near Irwin. 11,000 to 13,000ft. NE-E-SE

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: 1 undocumented cornice avalanche on Mt Owen. Difficult to date, but probably early in the last storm. Fresh roller balls and tiny wet loose avalanches, primarily on SE-S-SW. Stayed up high all afternoon and didn’t get a good feel for wet avalanche activity at lower elevations.

Weather: Pleasant day in the alpine. Calm wind. High temps at Scarps ridge were just below freezing. High clouds created a partly cloudy sky

Snowpack: As expected, no obvious signs of instability. Managing old wind slabs, cornices, and sluffs were the primary avalanche problems encountered. We avoided areas with a below-average snowpack depth and southerly-facing slopes in the alpine. Snow surfaces were lovely. Even the wind effect was soft, a little thicker but still soft. Small SH on the snow surface all the way up at 13,000ft on ridgelines.

Date of Observation: 01/12/2023
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Mt Axtell

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A very large avalanche in the Pencil, on Mt Axtell. It appears to have released on the weak layers near the bottom of the snowpack. Couldn’t see the avalanche debris, but given the size of the crown and the amount of snow entrained I’d estimate it was a D3.

Date of Observation: 01/12/2023
Name: Ben Pritchett

Zone: Northwest Mountains/Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Viewed from ski area

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Natural activity from the recent cycle
Weather:
Snowpack:

Date of Observation: 01/12/2023

Zone: Northwest Mountains/Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Flight around the forecast area

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Aerial images of numerous large avalanches from the recent cycle courtesy of Peter Smith and West Elk Air.
Weather:
Snowpack:

Date of Observation: 01/12/2023
Name: Zach Kinler

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Washington Gulch past Elkton and then up lookers left ridge of South Bowl. Quick tour up to Elkton knob upon return.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A handful of avalanches in the NW mountains on SE-E-NE aspects near and above treeline. These were all wind slabs formed over the previous 2 days and generally D1.5 with a couple D2s. No fresh persistent slabs were seen in the deeper snowpack. Observed 2 large slides on the West side of Gothic that looked to have started as wind slabs and then stepped down deeper in the snowpack.
Weather: Cold in the valley, quite pleasant once above 10,000′ especially in the abundant sunshine. Winds were calm below treeline and light near treeline. Occasional Moderate winds were observed moving snow on a few of the highest peaks in the range.
Snowpack: Travelling mainly on Southerly aspects from 10,800-12,100′ snowpack depth was generally between 150-180 cm deep on the uniform, planar slopes. Certain features were much shallower and some deeper. There was about 45 cm of settled snow from the 1/10-1/11 cycle. The upper few inches of snow on steeper southerlies was moist. Other than 2 small collapses on drifted SE features I observed no cracking or collapsing elsewhere. A profile on a SSW aspect near treeline produced an ECTP23 on 1-1.5mm facets near the ground(4 finger minus hardness). The slab here was just over 100 cm thick with the bottom few centimeters being Pencil hard.

Date of Observation: 01/11/2023
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Couple laps in AMR. North, 10,000ft to 11,500ft

Observed avalanche activity: No

Weather: Continuous snow through the morning hours and starting to taper off in the early afternoon. Strong NW winds and lots of snow transport. Poor visibility.

Snowpack: Measured about 40 to 45cm of new snow in an old skin track. I’d assume that track was put in yesterday. A couple of different storm interfaces in the upper snowpack, with layers of lower-density snow and grapple. Cracking in the upper snowpack become more abundant as we entered NTL elevations or in areas with wind-affected snow. We skied slope angles around 35 degrees and didn’t otherwise encounter anything notable.

Date of Observation: 01/11/2023
Name: Zach Guy and Zach Kinler

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Traveled on westerly below treeline terrain near Pittsburg.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Saw a couple of storm slabs that likely ran yesterday or last night on a cut bank above the Slate. Limited vis, but I could see that there were no valley crushers off of Schuylkill Ridge which was nice.
Weather: Storming hard. Moderate to heavy snowfall throughout the day with gusty northwest winds blowing snow down valley and off trees.
Snowpack: Storm totals near Pittsburg are 50 cm and the snowpack is ~200 cm. No signs of instability underfoot traveling on mellow slope angles. On a west aspect, we tested the 12/20 and 11/28 layers using modified deep-tap ECTs. 11/28 produced a propagating fracture under a 170 cm slab. The layer is 3-4 mm depth hoar. The 12/20 interface is 1-1.5mm rounding facets, and did not propagate fractures.

Date of Observation: 01/11/2023
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic townsite obserations

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: Cloudy (all day, all the time) with only light snowfall yesterday but very dense as it reached 32F. Some wind late morning on. Then a bit of snow after dark, pausing until around midnight and then steady snow (4½”) since. Total the last 24 hours was 7″ new and water 0.66″ as the snowpack reached winter’s deepest of 56½”. Wind is calm and the current temperature is the morning low of 18F with light snow. billy
Snowpack: