Date of Observation: 12/30/2021
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Standard skin track up and traversed above 1st and 2nd bowls on the north side. Descended my up-track down to the trailhead.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: I inspected several previously reported avalanches on northerly slopes from 12/27 (likely ran on 12/24) and found around 2 feet of low-density snow accumulated on bed surfaces. I purposely traveled above 1st and 2nd bowls to look at slopes that avalanched during 12/9-10 cycle to find out if these slopes avalanched again, and, to my surprise, these slopes appeared to be holding all of the storm snow since 12/23.
Weather: Overcast skies with continuous light snowfall from 11am-4pm. Around 4pm snowfall rates increased. Winds were generally very light between 9,600 – 11,100 feet. Trees at the summit of Snodgrass were holding lots of snow.
Snowpack: No signs of instability during the tour, I traveled off the beaten track in several areas on sunny and shady slopes. I dug a profile on a southeasterly slope at 10,400 feet and found a sensitive storm snow interface around a foot below the surface but did not experience any cracking underfoot. A second interface, in the middle of the snowpack, was softer than layers above and below but did not produce propagating results. Snow depths on northeast through east through southeast slopes ranged from 130cm to 180cm.

Date of Observation: 12/30/2021
Name: jeff banks

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: SW Slopes BTL

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: S1 limited Visibility
Winds increasing to Moderate at NTL ridgetop. Some massive drifts 2m & blown out slopes with only ~50cm vs 130cm avg depth
Snowpack: No signs of instability on slopes lacking the early season facet layer.

Very Supportive midpack with ~4-5″ of low density snow overnight.

Easy trail breaking with fast skiing on top of the big storm slab.

Date of Observation: 12/30/2021
Name: Billy Barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic Townsite

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: Obscured, of course, but only light wind yesterday afternoon along with light snow as well. But the wind picked up late in the day and continued through the night. The 24 hour snow totals were 7″ new (5″ overnight) and 0.59″ of water, the heaviest snowfall coming in the last hour. Currently light snow and steady wind with gusts in the 30’s. The snowpack is up to 49″. Very little temperature movement again as the range has held between 13 and 19F in the past 24 hours. Again substantial snow movement from the wind though the snowpack (down here) is setting up fast. billy

Date of Observation: 12/29/2021
Name: Ben Pritchett

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Red Lady skin track

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Saw one fresh D2-2.5 avalanche below the flat ridge section. This was adjacent to, but lower down the ridge than the skier triggered one from Dec 25. There was a ski track on the ridge nearby, so skiers might have triggered this feature from above. The crown was 2-3′ deep and took out a few trees in a short run of only a couple hundred feet.
Weather: Ridgeline Wind Speed: 10-20 mph
Ridgeline Wind Direction: W
Wind Loading: Light
Temperature: 20 F
Sky Cover: Obscured
Depth of Total Snow: 150 cm
Weather Description: Steady light snow most of the day. We experienced a brief lull in snowfall around mid-day, but it picked back up in the afternoon. Cloudy, poor visibility.
Snowpack: Travelled on southerly slopes and experienced no collapsing or cracking. The snowpack was around 140cm deep near the bottom of the mountain, with the December snow resting on mostly dirt and a few scattered crusts. Mid-mountain I measured around 150-160cm of snowpack, mostly resting on a stout crust capping percolation tubes and large facets.

Date of Observation: 12/29/2021
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Washington Gulch TH to Anthracite mesa. Ascended low-angle east and northeast slopes to ridgetop.  Avoided being on or underneath avalanche terrain.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: None observed. Brief views of SW side of Snodgrass and steep, leeward northeasterly shots immediately above Long Lake. Mother nature teased me several times with fuzzy views of Gothic, but never clear enough to read the snow surface.
Weather: Very consistent light snowfall (S1) from 11 – 330. Winds were blowing around 10 mph with gusting to around 20 mph on ridgetop at 10,500 feet. Some efficient loading was observed on to northeast-facing lee slopes.
Snowpack: I mostly traveled on east and northeast slopes below treeline and a few small southeast-facing slopes. No collapsing or cracking observed. Strong, supportive slabs 100-130cm thick exist over weak snow near the ground on northeast and east terrain. Stability tests indicated unstable conditions (see profile). I stomped, ski stabbed, and boot packed into the weak layer above two suspect northeast slopes without result. On southeast features, the snowfall from December has largely fallen on bare dirt with intermittent crusts at the ground.

Date of Observation: 12/29/2021
Name: Jeff Danger Banks

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: <30º 9,300-10,000 Flat wetlands w/ willows, SW-S Aspens & bushy fields

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: Some light snow showers and Light to Moderate winds in the afternoon.
Blizzard conditions kicked up by 4PM, got nasty real quick.
Snowpack: 1 Rumble on 5º SE facing slope @ 9,300
Triggered by Skier 1 skinning off the margin of 2m wind slab, with 4 skiers still on the big slab. Skier 1 moved off the edge of the slab into snow 90cm deep and hit the landmine (covered bush)

No other signs of instability on SW-S and traipsing through aspens, wetlands of willows.

Date of Observation: 12/29/2021
Name: Andrew Breibart

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Washington Gulch TH to SW slopes.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: Overcast with light wind to no wind. Intermittent S-1 with no snow accumulation.
Snowpack: No cracking; no collapsing; and no whomping on SW terrain below tree line on new skin track. 48 hour snow accumulation may be around 8 inches. The wind did a number to the road within the 48 hour period 1/27/21. On Monday, the road was benched. Today, it sloped into the natural hillslope

Date of Observation: 12/29/2021
Name: billy barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: More of the same with light snow and generally strong wind. Snow stopped for a couple hours in the afternoon but still no visibility at all and there has been none for the past 6 days except once for 2 hours. That said there was 6½” new snow with water 0.51″ and the snowpack is at the winter’s deepest of 45½”. Currently light snow but the wind stopped about 45 minutes ago. That makes it practically summer, right?. No temperature movement in tht the high was 18 and the low 14 for the past 21 hours.
Snowpack:

Date of Observation: 12/28/2021
Name: Zach Guy and Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Quick afternoon snowmobile tour out to look at 7 sisters and back, testing some small slopes enroute

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: Poor visibility. 7 sisters stayed put. Couldn’t see much else for avalanche terrain.
Weather: Moderate snowfall all afternoon, light winds in valley location.
Snowpack: Deep, unconsolidated snowpack; about 5 feet down to persistent weak layers. Boot pen is about 4 feet. We slope cut a handful of low elevation, south facing test slopes with no cracking or signs of instability. We got one large collapse on a low angle, shady aspect while Evan and I were both wrestling with his stuck snowmobile (see photo).  The wrestle-your-snowmobile-unstuck test did not produce any results on southerly facing, below treeline slope, despite numerous tests in various locations.

Date of Observation: 12/28/2021
Name: jeff banks

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Low angle open Meadows on snodgrass

Observed avalanche activity: No
Snowpack: 2 booming collapses on ESE & S @ ~9,800

Very hard to predict where we would get collapses… the usual suspects around willows didn’t produce. Collapses were in dry buried bushy terrain, snow depth ~80cm-1meter. ~9,800ft