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:

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

Zone: Southeast/Northwest Mountains boundary
Route Description: Mount Emmons. Traveled mostly on S and SE aspects to 12,400′

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Adding a pile of previously undocumented naturals to the list from the recent cycle that fit the pattern of what we’ve been observing, see photos and details below. Most of the northeast side of Red Lady Bowl appeared to run and there were a handful of wind slabs that ran on the southeast portion of the bowl. I didn’t see any fresh avalanches from the past 24 hours.
Weather: Sunny, clear. Winds were strong enough to blow my #tired hat off my head, but luckily I retrieved it. Snow transport continues above treeline in exposed locations.
Snowpack: Our field objective today was to assess if the persistent slab problem should expand to the sunny aspects that held a crust (rather than dirt) before the storm. In short, I didn’t find evidence of persisting issues on the 12/6 crust where it is stout on sunny aspects. In a pit on a SE aspect NTL, long column tests produced no concerning results on the crust. The crust is pencil hard and goes to the ground where we dug. Above the crust, there are .3 to .5 mm rounding facets, 4F- (the 12/8 layer).
We traveled mostly on sunny slopes that were dirt before the storm with no signs of instability. As soon as we scooted into some low angle, shady terrain below treeline, we started getting collapses that would radiate to the nearest cluster of trees. These same slopes are developing small grained surface hoar and near-surface facets on the snow surface right now. Kicked at a few recent drifts at higher elevations with minimal cracking.