Date of Observation: 12/05/2022
Name: Zach Guy and Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Traveled on west facing terrain near and below treeline near Lake Irwin and east facing terran below treeline above Elk Creek.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: On west facing terrain at Irwin: We remotely triggered a small persistent slab from about 20 feet away (See video). The soft slab was up to 16″ thick, and failed on the topmost facet layer in stack of several facet/crust layers that were buried a week ago. The other steep slopes that we traveled near had all avalanched previously. Same for east facing terrain in Elk Creek: all of the paths that we approached slid naturally, probably during the Nov 29 storm.
Weather: Overcast, light snow and graupel, moderate ridgeline winds with periods of light transport. Mild temps.
Snowpack: Frequent collapsing and shooting cracks while breaking trail on west-facing terrain in the 20* to 30* range. The collapses are occurring on thin and weak facet crust sandwiches. Collapses were somewhat less common on east-facing terrain, perhaps because the slabs are thicker, but plenty of collapses nonetheless. There was an impressive amount of graupel in the top 10 cm of the snowpack. The slab continues to get stiffer and more supportive to skis, making for fun and fast skiing on low angle terrain. After clearly identifying that the terrain we were scouting had slid earlier in the week, we felt comfortable riding on those steeper pitches.

Date of Observation: 12/05/2022
Name: billy barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic townsite

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: A little bit of sun yesterday (hooray) as it stayed dry, then cloudy and very warm overnight with light but very dense snow, mostly graupel, with 2″ new and water 0.22″. Wind light to none. There is 19″ of snow on the ground matching this winter’s deepest. Currently a very light snowfall with today’s high 33F (yesterday was 36) and the current 28 after a low of 27. Is it April? –The graupel is making for another weak layer in the snowpack as the current pack continues to collapse.

Date of Observation: 12/04/2022

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Snodgrass viewed from Gothic Road

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Recent small slide just before Tuttle Cabin. See photo.

Date of Observation: 12/04/2022
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Pavement avalanche obs.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A few natural avalanches from east and northeast aspects of Whetstone and Gothic Mountain. The Gothic avalanche clearly is big enough to bury a person(D2) and a couple on Whetstone looked to be large(D2) as well, but visibility was poor so made my best estimates on size.
Weather: Mostly cloudy conditions in the early afternoon when I made the observation.
Snowpack:

Date of Observation: 12/04/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Baxter Basin and Cascade Mtn, Traveled on various aspects up to 11700′

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Numerous natural D1.5 to D2 slabs from the last storm, most on North to East N/ATL, with a couple that rounded to Southeast and South-Southeast aspects. Light was flat so it was hard to make out exact sizes and crown connectivity. See photos. Tried getting some smaller terrain features to release without any luck.
Weather: Clouds increased mid-morning. Light winds with light transport at times. Mild temps.
Snowpack: Frequent collapses, some localized, some rumbling across entire terrain features. Slabs are generally 2 feet thick and average 4F hard over our well-advertised weak layers. We targeted a pit on a due south slope that held old snow prior to the recent storms. The crust capping the large-grained facets is about 6 cm thick, and tests did not propagate.

Date of Observation: 12/04/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Viewed from Slate River Road

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Numerous recent D1 – D1.5 avalanches on Schuylkill Ridge and a few D2,  on E-NE aspects N/BTL. A few D1.5-D2 in Redwell Basin as well. See photos. Looks like most of these ran during the storm on Friday, but a few look crisp enough that they might have run yesterday.

Date of Observation: 12/04/2022
Name: Zach Guy

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

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A few D1.5 to D2 slides on NE and E aspects of Schuylkill and Climax, N/BTL that ran sometime in the past 2 days. Good views of some alpine terrain without any obvious crowns, hard to say whether the winds smoothed avalanches over or were just too strong to properly load the classic start zones.
Weather:
Snowpack:

Photos:

Date of Observation: 12/04/2022
Name: billy barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic

Weather: A bit more of a ‘normal’ snow Saturday with 2″ new and a more what was once standard water content of 0.12″ of water. Snowpack reached 19½” deep and now at 19″, just slightly under average for this date. It was blissfully calm. Some clearing overnight and warm with the low 16F so far, after a high of 25F. Currently partly cloudy and calm. –Snow was still collapsing on level ground.

Date of Observation: 12/03/2022
Name: Zach Kinler

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Snodgrass Trailhead toward Gothic townsite

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Visibility was fading but there was evidence of a large slide in Coon Basin. E-NE aspect.
I remote-triggered a small avalanche from the flats just off the road on an East aspect.
Weather: Increasing clouds and moderate snow mid morning.
Snowpack: Reactive. Every small test slope with older snow collapsed and cracked with little effort. Found one that finally ran after the collapse on a steeper slope that had been previously wind loaded.

Date of Observation: 12/03/2022
Name: billy barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic

Weather: Wind Friday started moderate with strong gusting but by the afternoon was a steady blizzard with gusts around 40-50 mph- worst since last spring and the reason why people move to milder climates in winter. The snow was dense and wind driven so for the day there was 3″ new with water of 0.44″. Wind let up in the evening and it cleared and cooled with clouds returning around 3-4 a.m. The temperature rose from the low of 3F to the current 11 after a daytime high yesterday of 27. Currently cloudy and calm with 18″ on the ground, down from the hgh of 19″