Date of Observation: 03/09/2022
Name: Zach Kinler

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Slate River to Pittsburg, standard uptrack and descent on the rollers. 9,000 ft -10,600 ft.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: No new avalanches were observed. Vis was poor so could not see into the surrounding terrain.
Weather: Overcast, temps in the 20s, very light snowfall throughout the tour with accumulation less than an inch. Just after 2:00 SW winds picked up and started knocking snow bombs off the trees below treeline. Moderate to heavy snow began to fall around 4:30.
Snowpack: HST only 4.5″ thus far with no instabilities seen in new snow. Traveling primarily on slopes facing E-N below treeline, I was targeting the mid-February weak layer sensitivity in spots that previously avalanched as well as in-tact slopes. The snowpack was very quiet with no collapsing or cracking in new snow or on Feb facet layer. Slopes that did not slide in late February have a slab just over 100cm thick, up to 1F+ hard, while a slope that slid had a much softer slab(F-4F-) and about half that thickness. Tests in both areas show stubborn results with hard propagation on full depth slopes and ECTN results on bed surface slopes where the slab is thinner and softer. The February facet layer is still soft(F hard) whether the slopes slid or not with a thin crust capping 2mm facets on the slopes that slid, these layers will be tested with more loading. Easy propagating results were observed in one pit on a NNE aspect where small facets were found at the 3/5 interface however no other signs of instability were observed on this layer. May be one to watch in the future on northerly slopes.

Date of Observation: 03/08/2022
Name: Irwin Guides

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Viewed from Irwin Tenure

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: E bowl anthracites observed what was most likely a natural WS from
Irwin in the AM D1 potentially?

E face Ruby/Owen ridge above green lake. There was a natural wind slab 100′
X 500 below the ridge observed in the AM, then sometime after 1400 it ran again failing higher on the slope.
2-3′ X 200′ X 800′ almost to green lake.
Weather:
Snowpack: 3″ of settlement since the storm ended. No signs of instability after testing the PS structure on the west wall.

Photos:

Date of Observation: 03/08/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Traveled on flat or east facing terrain to 11,400 ft. in West Brush Creek

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Good views of lots of terrain in West Brush up towards White Mtn, and I did not see any natural activity from this past storm. However, there were a handful of small soft slabs that ran recently near valley bottom near the confluence of Middle and West Brush Creek. One of them appeared to be remotely triggered today by a snowmobile. The rest ran naturally sometime in the past couple days on east and north aspects.
Weather: Mostly clear skies, calm winds where we traveled; occasional light drifting on high peaks like Teo. Cold day.
Snowpack: 12″ of settled storm snow in the Union Chutes area. We saw numerous shooting cracks while snowmobiling flat terrain in valley bottom, a couple of them shook willows or small tree branches. The most interesting one I triggered from across a creek; the failure must have crossed a snow bridge and collapsed the opposite slope (east facing). On skis, we produced two collapses on east facing slopes around 10,000 ft. Both collapses required some hard stomps to punch through the mid-slab crust first. Most of the steep terrain around here avalanched with the last cycle. The one bedsurface we traveled on did not appear to have enough slab to be problematic; it did not produce signs of instability on slope angles up to 40 degrees. I also tested a few south and west facing terrain features without any signs of instability.  Obvious signs of instability also waned as we climbed to near treeline elevations on E/NE, although the structure is clearly poor from pole probing.

Date of Observation: 03/08/2022
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Northwest Mountains & Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Pavement observations.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Observed a couple of fresh avalanches off Scarp Ridge, Axtel’s 5th Bowl, and a south-facing slope between Red Lady and Coon.

Date of Observation: 03/08/2022
Name: Than Acuff

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Hwy 135

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Small persistent slab that looks like it ran naturally from yesterday afternoon’s winds.
Weather: Some blowing snow off of Whetstone this morning.
Snowpack:

Date of Observation: 03/07/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Traveled on NE, E, SE, and S aspects of Schuylkill Ridge to 11,400 ft.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: I was hunting for signs that one of the dozens of bed surfaces on Schuylkill Ridge is reactivating. I stomped on and ski cut a handful of slopes that ran during the 2/23 cycle without anything interesting until I put in a ski cut above the ENE side of Birthday Bowl, which produced a D2 slab avalanche about 5 feet in front of my skis..maybe we can call that remotely triggered. The slab was about 100 feet wide, 20″ thick, and ran a few hundred feet shy of the bench. The snow structure there was soft snow from the recent storm over the bed surface from the last cycle, which is a soft melt-freeze crust capping facets. From where I triggered it, the slide failed on the facets.  However, as I traced the length of the crown, at some point it stepped up above the crust. So it failed on a combination of old snow and storm interface. I also spotted a small slab that failed midway down the Shield in Redwell Basin, breaking in the storm snow.
Weather: Light winds and very light snowfall this morning. Around 2 p.m., there was a stronger but brief pulse of moderate snowfall, followed by winds increasing out of the northwest. Snow was actively cross-drifting at lower elevations from down-valley winds, and I saw efficient transportation into Red Lady Bowl as I was leaving the trailhead.
Snowpack: 12″ to 18″ of storm snow. No obvious signs of instability underfoot while traveling on an established skin track and while occasionally jumping off the skin track fishing for collapses. I got some localized cracking in drifted features isolated to ridgetop and in a cross-drifted gulley near valley bottom.
On a due east aspect NTL where the entire persistent slab structure is intact, I got hard propagating results about 3 feet down. On due east aspects, the 3/5 crust was about 5 cm thick and 1F hard on steep slopes (see profile). On slopes that avalanched during the last cycle, tests produced failures below the storm snow that did not propagate on the weak facets left behind after the avalanches. The slope that avalanched had a similar structure as the latter ones I tested with ECTs.
On SE aspects, that same crust is very thick and supportive. The storm snow appeared to be bonding fairly well to that crust on southerly aspects; ski cuts on slopes up to 40 degrees only produced minor sluffing in the top few inches of snow.

Date of Observation: 03/07/2022
Name: billy barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic townsite

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: Snow started in the evening going steady but light overnight with 5½” new and water 0.33″. Wind light from the southwest. Currently obscured with light snow and light SW wind. The temperature range the last 24 hours was a high of 31F and the low, and the current, of 10F. Snowpack is at winters deepest of 69″.
Snowpack: The snowpack is still collapsing but i saw no signs of avalanche activity.

Date of Observation: 03/06/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Anthracite Mesa. Traveled mostly on NE and SW aspects to 10,900 ft.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: We saw a couple of small natural soft slabs that likely ran yesterday on the storm interface (a sun crust) on cross drifted, south facing, below treeline slope. Decent visibility looking towards Schuylkill Ridge and couldn’t see any fresh large slides.
Weather: Overcast with light snowfall filling in this afternoon. Light winds with moderate gusts out of the southwest shifting to west. No blowing snow where we were; couldn’t see the alpine.
Snowpack: Up to 16″ of settled storm snow, still fist hard. Once we ventured off of the beaten skin track on Coney’s, we got numerous rumbling collapses about 3 feet deep on the mid-February dryspell layer. These were on NE aspects and a WNW aspect on slopes less than 35 degrees. Most of these collapses required a few hard stomps with my skis to initiate, a couple went while simply breaking trail. Conversely, on southerly aspects, our only concerns were managing storm snow instabilities over thick crusts left behind by the warmup. The new snow appears to be bonding well to the storm interface below the treeline on those sunny aspects, based on ski cuts and a lack of cracking in steep terrain. I poked into one bedsurface from the 2/23 cycle on a NE aspect. The dryspell facets are still intact (and worse off than slopes that haven’t avalanched) but it doesn’t seem as if this storm produced enough of a slab for repeat offenders here yet; I got non-propagating pit results and no signs of instability on the slope.

Date of Observation: 03/05/2022
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Slate River rd out to Pittsburg.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Lots of Loose avalanches in the storm snow at all elevations – small in size. Numerous small slabs breaking in the storm snow below treeline – small in size. Observed a debris pile below Climax Chutes on far lookers right end that may have been close to a D2 but could not see start zone well enough to make sense. East face of Cinnamon appeared to have a slab avalanche below the cornice but I wasn’t able to identify with confidence.
Weather: Light snowfall from 10 to 1pm and intermittent snowfall with some sunshine between 1 – 330. Winds remained light below treeline, but I could hear it blowing at upper elevations.
Snowpack: Near Pittsburg, 18″ of very low-density storm snow. Winds below treeline were light with some evidence at valley bottom of transport overnight. A few glimpses into alpine terrain revealed transport near and above treeline on to leeward east aspects. Sheltered terrain had a Loose Dry avalanche problem and a few features, gently kissed by the wind, produced cracking up to 20 feet, but behaved much like a Loose Dry avalanche due to low-density storm snow. Stability test on northeast slopes below treeline produced no results. Looking at the February weak layer on a slope that did not avalanche during last week’s natural cycle showed increased hardness (4 finger) and rounding but remains much weaker than the overlying slab. Traveled through a northeast-facing slope that avalanched at the end of last week’s natural cycle without signs of instability but the February weak layer was still present. An east-facing slope had a 3-4cm melt/freeze crust beneath the storm snow.

Date of Observation: 03/05/2022
Name: Billy Barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic townsite

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: Only a brief light snow around sunset Friday but then moderate to heavy snow starting a few hours before sunrise. Currently obscured cloud cover with moderate snowfall and light SW wind. There was 9½” new snow with water totaling a light density of 0.62″. Current snowpack at 59½”. There had been 4 days of record high temperature until yesterday but mild overnight last night with the low, and current, of 20F. billy
Snowpack: