Date of Observation: 12/02/2022
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Kebler Area Tour. Northerly, 10,000ft to 11,500ft

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Skier triggered a couple of small slides. The first was while descending small, but steep terrain. The 2nd was while bouncing for a collapse, resulting in a remotely triggered avalanche from about 25 feet away.

Weather: Strong winds and blowing snow most of the day. Hard to gauge how much it was snowing vs blowing.

Snowpack: HST was about 20cm by 1 pm at 10,500ft. A distinct layer of graupel near the base of the storm and plenty of graupel mixed in with other perception particles within the storm now. Thick and supportive new snow. Made the low angles ski really well. Total HS in the area is around 100 to 120cm.

Lots of collapses and shooting cracks in the snowpack, as has been normal lately. Each time I looked, those cracks were extending down to the weak sandbox near the base of the snowpack.

Date of Observation: 12/02/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Mt. Crested Butte, gladed low angle skiing on northerly aspects.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Ski triggered a couple of 12″ soft slabs breaking on our weak facet layer on small rollovers in the trees. Saw results from mitigation teams on Horseshoe that failed on the storm interface and old facet layers, D1 in size.
Weather: Moderate snowfall rates and strong winds with periods of intense wind transport.

Date of Observation: 12/02/2022
Name: Zach Kinler

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: East ditch trail above 4th and Red Lady

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: Cloudy with nnow squalls. Moderate West wind in open areas.
Snowpack: On an afternoon dog walk, I was able to collapse just about every small slope I stepped on producing shooting cracks. These features were not big enough to run but larger ones certainly would have. Westerly winds were moving snow in open areas below treeline. 6-7″ of new snow from this storm, which was fairly dense.

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Date of Observation: 12/02/2022
Name: Billy Barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic Townsite

Weather: Cloudy overnight with snow starting before 3 a.m. light to moderate but very dense with 3″ new and water 0.31″ with the snowpack at 16″. Gusting wind at times. Currently obscured with light snow. High temperatures the past 24 hours was 36F, low 24 and the current 25. A wet, heavy snow to start out.

Date of Observation: 12/01/2022
Name: Billy Barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: viewed from Gothic townsite

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: two small avalanches on northeast slopes of snodgrass than ran late Wednesday or overnight.
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Date of Observation: 12/01/2022

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: small hills near Snodgrass trailhead

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: some real small avalanches from the storm
Weather: sunny skies, snow blowing off summits
Snowpack: snow depth about 2 feet on shaded terrain. sporadic surface hoar moderate size.  a few small collapses. many slopes were covered in cracks but didn’t avalanche.

Date of Observation: 12/01/2022
Name: Zach Kinler

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Slate River TH to bottom of Purple Palace

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Continued documentation of the widespread avalanche cycle on East through North aspects.
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Date of Observation: 11/30/2022
Name: Zach Kinler

Zone: Southeast Mountains/ Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Slate River TH to the bottom of Purple Palace

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Documented a widespread cycle of avalanches from the recent storm on East through North aspects at all elevations. There were many small avalanches below treeline and numerous large D2-2.5 avalanches near and above treeline. The majority of these slides appear to have failed on 11/29 with the earlier ones filling back in a bit making them harder to identify.
Weather: Cold, had the handlebar warmers on high.
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Date of Observation: 11/30/2022
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Slate River corridor to Purple Ridge skin track.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Widespread natural avalanche cycle. Below treeline northerlies (weakest snowpack) ran during the storm with many small naturals. Near and above treeline slopes held out longer and produced large, dangerous avalanches. See photos. We remotely triggered one avalanche from 250 feet away that wrapped around some small terrain features producing a large (D2) avalanche on a NE slope.
Weather: Clear skies, cool temperatures, and light winds.
Snowpack: We traveled on mostly easterly aspects (NE-E-SE) slopes. Collapsing was rampant on north and east aspects. Some collapses ran a few hundred feet breaking in well-developed facets. The slab ranged from 10 to 15 inches thick in sheltered terrain. The depth, here in the snowbelt Northwest Mountains forecast area, was up to 90cm (3 feet) in sheltered areas. Signs of instability were obvious and the conditions behaved like a Persistent Slab problem with remote triggering a real concern.