Date of Observation: 11/29/2021
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Schofield Pass area. Traveled on W, NW, and N aspects between 10,700 and 12,500 ft.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Saw what looks like a recent slab avalanche, D1.5 in size; it failed in a west-facing cirque near Cassie Peak. It looks like it failed in older snow layers close to the ground. I’m guessing it was triggered by a very small wet loose in the past few days.
There was also a handful of previously undocumented wind slab avalanches from the last storm on NE aspects of Baldy, D1 to D1.5 in size.
Weather: Unseasonably warm, calm winds, clear skies.
Snowpack: Widespread surface hoar growth on flat or shady aspects below about 11,800 ft. Snowpack is generally faceted throughout, 1 mm near the surface and up to 3mm near the ground. It’s hard to find any lingering midpack except in previously wind-blasted terrain. We dug into a previously cross-drifted slope with no concerning pit results. In wind protected terrain, boot pen is to the ground, ski pen also getting close to the ground. West aspects were moist or wet this afternoon on near and below treeline slopes.

Date of Observation: 11/28/2021
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Upper Slate, traveled on east and northeast aspects to 12,000 ft.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: A whole lotta nothing. Few clouds, light winds, mild temps.
Snowpack: Ski cut a few previously drifted features (below a cornice and in a crossloaded gulley) with no signs of instability. Surfaces continue to facet, eroding away at any slabs that formed last week. The melt-freeze vs dry snow line is right around 90* due east. Snowpack remains supportive to skis near and above treeline and becomes trapdoor or too shallow for making quality turns below treeline.

Date of Observation: 11/27/2021
Name: Ben Pritchett

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Pic from the highway en route to Rainbow Lake.

Observed avalanche activity: No

Date of Observation: 11/27/2021
Name: Evan Ross, Eric Murrow

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: 8,800ft to 11,800ft on north facing terrain.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: Few small sluffs, nothing notable.
Weather: Clear sky and calm wind. Thin overcast clouds moved around 2pm.
Snowpack: When we started the tour I couldn’t stand my ski pole up, thats a bad sign. By our high point the snowpack was averaging around 65cm’s deep. We had a serious group discussion on how to manage our main objective when it appeared to have a good fetch and notable wind-loading. In the end, any form of a slab in the terrain was isolated and discontinuous. Thankfully ski pen was around 15-30cm’s and the turns are real nice when they don’t find the ground.

Date of Observation: 11/26/2021
Name: Evan Ross Eric Murrow

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Toured on northerly facing terrain from 9,500ft to 11,500ft.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: Nothing notable. Some roller balls on southerly facing slopes and both dry/wet sluffs from the last couple days.
Weather: Clear and warm. Calm wind.
Snowpack: On this tour, the last Tuesday/Wednesday storm had made no deference in the avalanche conditions that were being reported previous to the storm. Just a nice refresh on the surface. We didn’t encounter any wind-loading or wind effected snow. Around 11,000ft the HS was about 80cm. You could still find areas with a 4f mid-pack, in the otherwise generally faceted and soft snowpack. Ski pen averaged about 15cm.

Date of Observation: 11/25/2021
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Purple ridge area. Ascended and descended through east and northeasterly terrain from 9,600 – 11,800 feet.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Observed a couple of natural avalanches that likely ran on Wednesday 11/24. Slab avalanches were above treeline in drifted terrain facing east or southeast. Appeared to only involve the most recent storm snow.
Weather: Beautiful Thanksgiving day. Temperatures rebounded quickly in the AM and winds remained light even at treeline on an exposed ridge. Storm total from the previous day was around 8 inches.
Snowpack: While traveling around a drifted easterly ridgeline, I found mostly soft drifts up to 18 inches thick. Did not experience any cracking or collapsing, but I avoided suspect terrain features with the most significant drifting. On easterly slopes near treeline, the recently drifted storm snow was resting on a fairly soft, 1-2cm melt/freeze crust. This crust was resting on fist-hard, faceted snow.  A generally poor-looking structure particularly if you found a slope with a thick drift resting above.  While descending below treeline I traveled through northeasterly terrain looking to see if I could produce Dry Loose avalanches but the storm snow has not faceted enough yet to produce any significant sluffing.

Photos:

Date of Observation: 11/25/2021
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Kebler Pass portion of the Ruby Range. Traveled on NE to SE aspects between 10,000 and 12,800ft.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: Nothing notable
Weather: Beautiful clear day. In the alpine the winds were just strong enough to keep snow in saltation. Didn’t see too much for snow plumes off the peaks.
Snowpack: Between about 10,000 and 11,600ft we traveled on easterly and southeasterly aspects with nothing of note other than a moist snow surface.

Above 11,600ft we primarily traveled on easterly to slightly northeasterly aspects. Ski pen average about 15cm’s on a nice thick creamy snow surface. Moving into the alpine, the thicker wind-loaded drifts were the primary thing that dictated our travel. Those slabs averaged around 30cm’s thick on up to 45cm’s thick in the couple places I poked around. Those drifts were sitting on the well-documented weak old snow surfaces. Facets and soft crusts over facets, nothing confident inspiring. Pushed on a few small wind-loaded terrain things with no results. The thicker nature of those slabs made the avalanche problem feel more stubborn to trigger.

New snow depths down low were settling quickly in the sun, around the 4 to 5″ range. Moving into the alpine the new snow depths were too variable to give much of an estimate.

Date of Observation: 11/24/2021
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Eastern side of Schuylkill Peak from Poverty Gulch

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Limited visibility during the tour but nearby there were several very small, natural loose avalanches in the storm snow on north and northeast aspects starting from cliffy/rocky areas. None gained enough mass to gauge into the snowpack. Later in the day, once skies clear around 4pm, I went for a pavement tour looking for avalanche activity in the Ruby Range and didn’t see any significant activity, just a few more small Loose Dry avalanches.
Weather: Cloudy skies in the morning with light snowfall slowly transitioned to partly cloudy skies by the PM. Winds were light throughout the tour even on ridgetop at 11,700 feet. New snow accumulations reached about 7 inches at 11,700 feet; valley bottom at 9,300′ was only about 3 inches.
Snowpack: We traveled on north, northeast, and east aspects to treeline. In general, the snowpack continues to facet and lose strength. Snow depths were commonly around 60 to 90 cm with boot penetration very close to the ground. Grain size in the old snow is commonly 1.5 to 2mm in size. We went hunting for fresh slab formation on a leeward, northeast-facing slope at 11,700′ and basically found a weak, faceted snowpack with 7 inches of new snow resting on the junk. No evidence of drifting, or Wind Slab formation on the tour. While driving around just before sunset, I was able to spot some fresh cornice formation above treeline on east and southeast-facing ridgelines.

Photos:

Date of Observation: 11/24/2021
Name: billy barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains

Weather: Overcast and mild all night with a steady but light snowfall. There is 3″ new snow ( (just slightly under at 7 cm) with 0.25″ of water and no wind. Snowpack is that 3″. Snow let up for a bit but seems to be starting again. Yesterday’s high was 44ºF and today’s low, and current, 25ºF.

Date of Observation: 11/23/2021
Name: Eric Roberts

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: 11:00-14:20
Toured up Elk Creek to ridgeline of Elk Basin to assess coverage and instability before storm moves in.Sky cover deteriorated and winds picked up around 12:30 with light precipitation moving in from the NW. No test pits were done, and I skied back on the skin track with some fresh turns.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: SCT->BKN->OVC by 12:30pm
Light to Moderate NNW winds increasing to consistent moderate SW winds with sporadic strong gusts.
36°F @ 9,400′
31°F @ 11,000′
S-1@13:00, S1 @13:30 (12,000′)
No riming observed
Snowpack: Overall, the snowpack is inconsistent and terrain/aspect dependent which has been the trend. No tests were conducted but snowpack in sheltered and exposed terrain shows poor structure.
Most wind sheltered areas do not have a slab component with unsupportive and cohesionless facets making up the bulk of the snowpack.
As the winds picked up, active transport was visible with plenty of low-density snow available for this storm to throw around.
The surface hoar observed from 9,800′-11,500′ will be tomorrows potential weak layer if there is enough accumulation from this pulse.
Where surface hoar isn’t present, 1-4″ of fresh or wind stiffened snow exists over a 1-2cm MFcr 10,000′ and up.