Date of Observation: 02/26/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: West side of Ruby Range, Anthracite Creek, and Anthracite Range as viewed from Kebler Pass Road.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Documenting a few more D1.5 to D2 avalanches from the cycle. The west side of the Ruby Range was relatively quiet at upper elevations, either because winds erased evidence or just never built slabs.

Date of Observation: 02/26/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: East Beckwith. Traveled on N to NE aspects to 11,500 ft.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Remotely triggered a slab avalanche that broke 2 feet deep on the sandbox layer from about 50 feet away. Documented a pile of natural avalanches that ran during the storm up to D2 in size that fit the pattern of what we’ve been seeing so far. See photos and details below.
Weather: Clear, light winds.
Snowpack: Snowpack continues to produce frequent signs of instability below treeline, with numerous collapses and shooting cracks on skis and tree shaking collapses on snowmobile. Slabs below treeline are 55 to 60cm, up to 4F hard, above Fist hard 2mm+ facets. As we gained near treeline, the snowpack quieted down. Pits at 10,700 and 11,500 did not produce propagating results. Slabs were up to 85 cm and 1F hard over 1-1.5mm 4F facets at our high point.

Date of Observation: 02/26/2022
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Valley bottom obs near Mount Emmons along the border of NW and SE mountain zones.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Several large natural avalanches from around 2/23 – 2/24 in Wolverine Basin, Redwell, “The Shield”, and Red Ridge above East River Valley.
Weather: Clear skies, light westerly winds, seasonably cool temperatures.
Snowpack:

Date of Observation: 02/26/2022

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Anthracite Range

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Large slab avalanche reported to CBAC via social media. “Definitely surprised. Concave feature, never seen it slide before.”

Date of Observation: 02/26/2022
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Upper Slate and Upper East River.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Remotely triggered one large avalanche, below treeline on a west aspect. Crown estimated to be 45 to 50cm. 1 large natural avalanches from the last cycle on south aspects above treeline. Lots of other avalanche activity to see, but it all fits the big picture and may have already been documented.

Date of Observation: 02/26/2022
Name: Zach Kinler

Zone: Border between SE and NW mountains.
Route Description: Descended from Top of the World to Gothic Campground, ascended same route(Gothic Mt Tour course).

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Got good eyes on some terrain near the border of our NW and SE forecast zones. Saw several avalanches on West and Northwest aspects as well as a few more on East and Northeast. Slides were seen in all elevation zones failing on the mid-February junk show likely on 2/22 or 2/23. All were D2 in size.
Weather: Northerly winds kept things feeling quite wintry out there. Abundant late February sunshine felt nice and warm in sheltered terrain.
Snowpack: Traveled on low angle East through SE facing slopes mainly. Still a bit noisy out there with any open areas producing collapses that echoed through adjacent terrain. Got several long running cracks while snowmobiling in similar terrain. In some cases, it took a hard stomp into the weak layer to get the collapse or the second/third person through the feature. Slabs were around 2 feet resting on top of weak facets or facet/crust combos. Moderate propagating results indicate a snowpack still on the mend. Observed some transport onto south aspects at upper elevations due to north winds.

Date of Observation: 02/25/2022
Name: Dave Koz

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: From Irwin

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: significant slide off the SE face of Ruby

Date of Observation: 02/25/2022
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: A look at natural avalanches on Climax Chutes. Several of these avalanches were reported in an observation on Wednesday.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Widespread mid-storm avalanche cycle in Climax Chutes. Per a previous observation, most of these likely ran early Wednesday morning. Thin cloud cover obscured good views of crowns, but aprons below each Climax Chute had a substantial amount of debris with two paths creating very large debris piles. Small portions of some features may not have failed, but overall Climax looks to have cleaned out a major portion of the storm snow.
Weather: Just hazy enough to muck up clear photos of the start zones Friday morning.
Snowpack:

Date of Observation: 02/25/2022
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Natural avalanches visible from Elkton Knob

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A bit ol’ pile of natural avalanches from east and northeast slopes near Schuylkill Peak.
Weather: Efficient wind-loading on upper elevation terrain.
Snowpack:

Date of Observation: 02/25/2022
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Snowmobile out Slate River to just past Pittsburg. Ascended west and southwest terrain to Elkton Knob. Descended the same terrain.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: In this terrain, there were numerous natural avalanche midstorm (partially filled bed surfaces) on west-facing below treeline terrain, generally D1.5 with one D2. We remotely triggered a steep west rollover from several hundred feet away.
Weather: Light snowfall and obscured skies in the AM gave way to mostly clear skies by 4pm. Overnight new snow accumulations around 2 inches. Westerly winds were transporting good amounts of snow above treeline and some near treeline.
Snowpack: Lots of loud collapsing on the February “drought layer” beneath the recent storm snow. Some collapses ran several hundred feet and shattered slopes less than 30 degrees. One collapse was able to connect to a small, steep rollover releasing a small avalanche 70cm deep. Westerly slopes tilted to the south had a thin melt/freeze crust capping the horrendous weak layer and northerly-tilted west slopes had the slab resting directly on the weak facets. Both structures behaved very similarly with long-running collapses. West-facing terrain below treeline is very much in the bullseye for human-triggered avalanches.