Date of Observation: 11/22/2021
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Purple Ridge. NE-E, 9,500-12,000ft.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: Beautiful day. Calm wind, lots of sun, warm temps. Feels like we are headed into spring.
Snowpack: Ooo snowpack. The skiing is still lovely, but the sun, wind and dry weather are not being kind to what snowpack there is. On a couple east and north facing bowls above treeline, the ski tracks from yesterday that were around 12″ deep, were now raised to the surface of the snow. Those sneaky winds have already been redistributing the recent fresh snow. The sun was creating a moist snow surface on the easterly slopes we traveled and on some northeasterly slopes below treeline. The snowpack structure at the moment can be simplified to just weak. Facets, crusts, plenty of junk.

Pushed on some fresh wind drifts near treeline with no results. No other avalanche concerns observed.

Date of Observation: 11/22/2021
Name: Eric Roberts, J. Caprio, W. Gilliam

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: 08:45-15:00
Our group of three toured from Schofield Pass Road near Friends Lake to our high point of 12, 400 in the East Basin of Mount Baldy.
We conducted test pits above treeline with results showing poor stability overall and false stable conditions. Great skiing conditions overall on North-East aspects as we descended near our skin track with no incidents. Beautiful day!

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: Clear
Calm
31°F @ 11,375′ (10:30)
No Precipitation
Snowpack: Snow Surface:
10,500′-11,500′ :20-40cm with wind kissed surface with NSF up to 10cm below surface. Wind slabs are present 10-15cm below surface in exposed terrain. There is a Melt-freeze crust/facet combo on ENE aspects approximately 15cm below surface.
11,500′-12,400′: 1-4″ of Fresh low density snow in sheltered areas ranging to unsupportive wind stiffened surfaces with HS 40-120cm.

Overall, our focus was to assess the SE zone and look for slab formation above treeline.
Instability tests at 11,375′ showed results of low-moderate strength with propagation potential, but there is evidence of false stable conditions.
Compression tests showed sudden results, at the base (120cm), despite the moderate results.
ECT’s varied in propagation potential, but more alarming is once again the fracture character of a sudden collapse at the base, despite the high results.
The upper snowpack in this location is complex and variable and the 1F-4F wind slab(20cm down) is potentially bridging the deeper, weaker snow. Time, warmer temps, shallow terrain and additional loads will potentially allow one to penetrate these layers.
A temperature gradient is present in the upper snowpack. 0-20cm below surface.
Surface hoar feathers 1-3mm were observed in the north facing treeline between 10,000′-10,600′.

Date of Observation: 11/21/2021
Name: Sam Lesnikoski

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Near purple palace

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Skier triggered small wind slab that ran predominantly in storm snow on easterly facing crust on our exit. Had we been above more serious terrain consequences would have been heightened.
Weather: Sunny and warm
Snowpack: Around five inches new on top of a pile of facets and and a variably distributed sun crust on solar aspects.

Date of Observation: 11/21/2021
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Paradise Divide. NW to N around 11,600ft.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Just a few small sluffs and soft slabs that ran above treeline on steep slopes having received some wind-loading
Weather: Clear and calm.
Snowpack: Call it around 5″ of new snow that skied deeper thanks to our weakening snowpack. The new snow was very cold and lacked any cohesion where we traveled. Comparing conditions today versus traveling in the same area a couple weeks ago, any support in the snowpack back then is now turning into the sand box effect. Defiantly weak out there and we didn’t encounter much of any slab on this short afternoon tour.

The predominant wind-loading patter from the last storm appeared to be from the northerly winds at the end of that storm.

Date of Observation: 11/20/2021
Name: Jack Caprio

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Purple Ridge

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Small D .5 dry loose sluffing in steep north aspects.
Weather: Overcast all day. Intermittent periods of S-1 snowfall. Around 3 pm, precipitation rate increased to consistent S1.
Snowpack: About an inch of new snow this morning at the valley bottom. Above 12,000’ there was about 3-4 inches of fresh snow. New snow was reactive on steep slopes producing sluff on every turn. The sluffs ran the length of the slope but did not gouge into the rest of the snowpack. The snowpack on north facing terrain was very weak top to bottom, without a slab. East facing terrain in this area had a thin breaker crust below the new snow, making for punchy conditions.

Date of Observation: 11/20/2021
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Schofield Pass area, traveled on E and NE aspects to 12,200 ft.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Skier triggered a shallow but long-running sluff in the new snow.
Weather: Light winds, light snowfall. Snowfall rates started increasing as we left around 4 p.m.
Snowpack: 2″ to 3″ of new snow. No signs of instability while traveling in steep terrain. In windsheltered terrain, the snowpack is now completely faceted throughout with ski pen close to the ground. Facets are 1mm in size near the surface and up to 2mm near the ground, generally fist hard to fist+ hard. In windier locations this structure is capped by a stiff wind crust of varying thickness; on easterly aspects, capped by a thin melt-freeze crust. We tested an isolated old drift NTL and got hard, non-propagating results below a 15″ hard slab.

Date of Observation: 11/19/2021
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Mt Owen

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: No recent avalanche, just the old stuff from a week ago.
Weather: Overcast sky. Trace of new snow, maybe a 1/4 inch! We mostly encountered calm winds, but there were some strong looking gusts blowing through the wind tunnels like near Green Lake.
Snowpack: The most notable observation was finding buried surface hoar from today’s snow. First happened to notice at about 12,500ft on a steep NE facing slope. The SH at that spot was 1cm tall under the trace of new snow. Continued to find the SH up to the ridgeline, and didn’t check on the decent. The SH was sitting on top of NSF, junk on junk.

Nothing notable to talk about below about 11,500ft. At those lower elevations the snowpack was shallow, but thankfully still supportable to keep the skis off the ground.

Above that elevation the snowpack continued to grow in depth and provided some surprisingly nice and soft ski turns. The best travel advice was keeping an eye out for those old thicker snow drifts, on northerly and easterly facing slopes, where maybe you could collapse a slab into weak snow below as you transitioned from the fatter snowpack to a thinner snowpack. In the end we didn’t find something that we chose to avoid. Feeling snow structure with a ski pole through the terrain didn’t show a consistent strong over week layering or significant, abrupt changes in hardness between those layers. Any thin interfaces would have been missed. Boot pen was around 35cm and ski pen averaging around 10 to 15cm.

Date of Observation: 11/19/2021
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Biked out to the end of West Brush Creek Road to document snow coverage

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: Overcast, a few snowflakes fell.
Snowpack: It would be very hard to find a slope with enough snow to produce an avalanche in this area. Maybe a small drift in the alpine. Below treeline, there is sufficient coverage on northwest to northeast aspects for fairly continuous weak layer formation. Other aspects are generally too patchy or bare. Above and some near treeline slopes have continuous coverage on east aspects and some windloaded southeast features as well.

Date of Observation: 11/17/2021
Name: Eric Roberts

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: 10:00-17:00
Toured up Elk Creek towards Scarp Ridge and topped out at Mount Emmons to assess instability of upper elevations and familiarize myself with terrain. I conducted one test pit above treeline with results showing poor stability overall. I descended Elk Basin and followed my skin track back to the parking lot.
A mixed bag of ski conditions but great to get up high with this early season coverage.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: Few in AM trending to CLR in PM
Light westerly winds in AM in Treeline
Consistent, moderate NW winds above treeline and along ridgelines
36°F @ 9,580’ (10:00)
15°F @ 12,080 (14:30)
No Precipitation
No riming observed
Snowpack: My focus was to assess the early season snowpack instability in the alpine and potential problems that may arise with the next added load. Tests showed low strength, propagation propensity and poor stability overall. The buried graupel layer 43cm down was reactive in both small and large column tests snd very visible in profile.

9,560’-12,340’: .5mm Graupel is present on most sheltered snow surfaces which could be buried in future storms. 20-40cm of unsupportive snow exists in most shaded and sheltered locations with wind loaded areas having up to 200cm.

*See snowplow for details*
Red Flags: No cracking, shallow localized collapsing in wind drifted areas
No observed releases
No test slopes performed
Active snow transport on ridgelines around 12,000’ on Scarp Ridge and Ruby Ridgeline