Date of Observation: 01/07/2023
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Irwin Tenure

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Explosives triggered a pair of large avalanches in Upper Upper Westwall. Most notably, a single 3# hand charge on a thin spot in the slab produced a crown 115cm x 50m running full track with trees up to 8″ diameter in the debris pile.
A handful of wind slabs ran yesterday or last night up to D1.5 in size. Numerous very small loose dry avalanches ran today from solar warming.
Weather: Few to scattered clouds through the day, light winds with no snow transport.
Snowpack: 36 hour storm totals are 20″ with 1.3″ SWE. Got one large collapse on a low-angle southerly slope where the snowpack is thinner because of wind erosion.

Date of Observation: 01/06/2023
Name: Ben Pritchett

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Ohio Pass
Snowpack: See profile

Date of Observation: 01/06/2023
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Standard Axtell uptrack and descended a recent bedsurface/debris pile in 2nd Bowl. Then snowmobiled out to Beckwith Pass, traveling mostly below treeline.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Several recent large and very large avalanches in Axtell. 2nd Bowl had what appeared to be two unique events that both reached valley floor. The first likely ran during the 12/31-1/1 cycle, evidenced by about 12″ of new on the bedsurface. The second and larger of the two likely ran during the 1/3-1/4 cycle, evidenced by only last night’s snow on the debris. There were a couple of other large avalanches on smaller terrain features in 2nd Bowl. All crowns were about 4 feet thick and failed on depth hoar near the ground. The Wang Chung slide put a big debris pile in valley bottom as well, likely another D3. I couldn’t see if the crown extended into Pencil or not.
Weather: Moderate to heavy snowfall most of the day. There was about 6″ of new near Beckwith Pass at noon, and it came down hard on our way out. Blowing snow near treeline.
Snowpack: Today’s objective was to target sensitivity of below treeline slopes in the shallower fringe areas of the NW Mtns. Stubborn fits well; jumping above and sidehilling across numerous slopes did not produce any signs of instability, and we saw no collapses. The mid-December layer is showing significant improvement (~1mm, rounding) and didn’t produce failures in tests. However, we did still get propagating results (once on isolation, once on hard loading) on the depth hoar layer at the ground, on a north-facing slope of Mt. Axtell.

Date of Observation: 01/06/2023
Name: Zach Kinler

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Silver Queen Express lift

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Documenting a few more large avalanches from the recent cycle.
Weather:
Snowpack:

Date of Observation: 01/05/2023
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Viewed from Mt. CB looking east towards Pearl Pass, Doubletop, etc, looking at the western half of the compass.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Lots of action above treeline that looks fresh, likely from the 1/3-1/4 cycle, generally on cross-drifted features from the NW winds, D2 in size. Also a lot of activity at all elevations that looks a bit older, likely from the 12/31-1/1 cycle. Only documenting the larger slides (D2), plenty of smaller ones too.

Date of Observation: 01/05/2023
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Pavement observations

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A few more avalanches that failed during the 1/3 – 1/4 avalanche cycle. Avalanches came from drifted north through east through southeast slopes.
Weather: Some drifting above treeline was visible from westerly winds.

Date of Observation: 01/05/2023
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Pavement obs

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Recent natural avalanches on southwest gully on Red Ridge, northeast-facing slope on Emmons above Gunsight Road, and upper snowpack avalanche in Raccoon Bowl on Emmons. See photos
Weather: While glassing for avalanches, I did see periods of moderate snow transport above treeline.
Snowpack:

Date of Observation: 01/05/2023
Name: Cheese _

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Poverty Gulch

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: The sidehill on Poverty went pretty big.

Date of Observation: 01/04/2023
Name: Dave Kozlowski

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Robinson Basin

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: See photos of a very wide propagating persistent slab avalanche in Robinson Basin, likely ran the night of 1/3 to 1/4.

Date of Observation: 01/05/2023
Name: Kevin Krill

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Below Climax Chutes

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: I drove over the pile on Mike’s and then around the toe of the debris. Guessing 15-20′ deep for 200 yards. Could be one of the biggest debris piles I’ve driven over in my tenure. The three main paths and all of the smaller ones on lookers right cleaned out. The two on the lookers left did not go.