Date of Observation: 12/13/2021
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Various aspects near Kebler Pass and Lake Irwin.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Nothing new. Documented a few older slides from the past cycle.
Weather: Few clouds. Moderate southwest winds at ridgetop with some light transport at times.
Snowpack: Primary goal today was to test the sensitivity of the persistent slab problem on shady aspects. Although it’s getting harder to produce signs of instability than earlier this week, the snowpack is still talking. I skinned over, then jumped with skis on, and then post-holed into four suspect low-angle slopes below treeline. One slope remained quiet, one produced a localized collapse when I skinned over a shallow, wind eroded feature, and two of them produced rumbling collapses after I stepped out of skis and sunk my boot into the weak layer. Slab depths in this area were 75 to 80 cm to the 12/6 facet layer.
Also dug into a southerly aspect near treeline to test bonding to the 12/6 crust. No alarming results and no signs of instability while traveling on southerly aspects.

Surface hoar growth observed below treeline.

Date of Observation: 12/13/2021
Name: Mark Robbins

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Up regular anthracites skinner to the saddle, skied off the southside a ways before aborting, skied out 7’s then down around the skin track

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: already reported by Zach K.
Weather: calm, sunny, warm
Snowpack: widespread surface hoar from 10,000′ to 10,500′ or so.
Skied south facing snow, descending from the saddle at 11,200′, at 11 am, which was a saturated sticky mess.
And the wind got into 7’s bowl, mixture of wind stiffened snow and supportive wind board.
No new signs of instability, just all the previously reported widespread avalanches and cracks.

Date of Observation: 12/12/2021
Name: Irwin Guides

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Thornton’s Glade

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: SS-ASc-R2/D2-G 70-100cm x 10-20m x 100m running on moist basal FC. West aspect NTL.
Triggered on an ~36 deg planar slope that harbored a nice swath of pre-12/6 FC.

Date of Observation: 12/12/2021

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Camo Glades

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Large slab in an opening in the trees ran a few days ago.

Date of Observation: 12/12/2021
Name: Frank Stern

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gunsight Pass Road from Slate River to 9,500′

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Westernmost Climax Chute ran (D2), multiple D1 avalanches on 40 degree slopes on N aspects.
Weather: Sunny
Snowpack: About 70 cm snow, some settling, shooting cracks.

Date of Observation: 12/12/2021
Name: Nick Couts

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Our party was starting at Wash gulch TH and crossing below coney’s proper to climb up the refill uptrack on the North end of coney’s. From there, crossing over Anthracite Mesa skiing the W aspect down and skinning back to Slate TH.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: From the North end of Coney’s we spotted a few slides. The first looked to be skier triggered just below the start of “first bowl” Maybe D1.5/2? It appears the slab propagated to skier left and ran along the adjacent rib. Based on the pair of tracks they appeared to have veered skiers left to dodge the debris. Further below two other smaller pockets had released on the convex nose where First Bowl and Convex Corner merge together. Possibly remote triggers from the four pairs of tracks coming down first bowl and convex corner.

Weather: Bluebird, moderate sustained W/NW wind at the top of the Coney’s/A Mesa.
Snowpack: On our route up, there was lots of whumpfing and shooting cracks, and once we got into the uptick saw loads of previous cracks and collapses, some smaller in the recent storm layer and some stepping down to the basal faceting. Our descent down the W side or A mesa saw no sign of recent avalanches or experience and whumpfing. Depth was ~75cm, top half of snowpack was about F and lower half to the ground was about 4F.

Date of Observation: 12/12/2021
Name: Travis Colbert

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Up the standard skin track with a slight diversion at the ridge to evaluate untraveled snow for instabilities (see photo). Plenty of collapsing and cracking. I would still be very wary of avalanche terrain that has yet to avalanche. Steady SW wind adding a load to leeward fetches. Descended the northern edge of Friday’s remotely triggered D2, with a good collapse on a stomp turn just off the ridge. Soft, but slightly punchy, wind-affected snow for most of the run. Lots of shattering on isolated terrain features down low. 2mm surface hoar on shaded slopes.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Nothing that hasn’t been reported.

Date of Observation: 12/12/2021
Name: Lawson Yow

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Rode out slate to the bottom of the switchbacks

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Several EF ridgetop avalanches on skoog.
A big avy up on purple ridge (above purple palace)
A small, recent avy on a BTL NF shoulder of purple.
Weather: Cold n Clear. No wind
Snowpack: Storm snow starting to get heavier

Date of Observation: 12/11/2021
Name: Ben Pritchett

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Ruby Range and Whetstone as viewed from town

Observed avalanche activity: Yes

Date of Observation: 12/12/2021
Name: Zach Kinler

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Anthracites, standard up-track to the ridge

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: The slide lookers left in 7 bowls is quite impressive, propagating very widely on a slope that typically gets more scouring than loading. Debris was deep across the typical egress from 7 and blasted into the trees hitting the standard uptrack as well. Very active in the Playground area with most activity on these N and NE aspects breaking early in the cycle. Bed surfaces have largely filled back in and debris buffed smooth.
Weather: Perfect winter day, cold temps but abundant sunshine and little wind near and below treeline.
Snowpack: HS in Anthracites around 150 cm, we got a couple of collapses but overall somewhat quiet breaking trail on shady aspects below treeline. Many slopes 35 or greater have avalanched or shattered. On a SE aspect at 11,200, there was no old snow found with around 70 cm of settled storm snow on dirt. The surface was slightly moist while S aspects had a moist upper couple inches of snow. Small surface hoar and near-surface facets were noted in the shade.
Photos: