West Side Kebler Check In

CBAC April 7, 20212020-21 Observations

Date of Observation: 04/07/2021
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Location: West Side Kebler and East Beckwith
Aspect:
Elevation: 9,000-10,500

Avalanches: Old avalanche activity was similar to other locations around our greater forecast area. Loose wet avalanches or rollerballs on all aspects except some high north. Some loose wet avalanches also gouged deeply into the snowpack or triggered wet slab avalanches. Only noticed a couple of proper wet slabs. No fresh avalanche activity from today.

Weather: Partly cloudy and winds helping keep the snow cool. Down low on the east side of Kebler pass the cold winds where holding a steady breeze. Down low on the west side of Kebler Pass the winds were calm.

Snowpack: Snow surfaces softened in the afternoon on all aspects below treeline. On northeast to east slopes around 10,000ft by east beckwith you could push small loose wet avalanches on steep terrain in the top 2″ of the snowpack. Not really much of a problem unless in bigger terrain maybe. Snowpack stayed supportable to boots on a variety of aspects down low. Dug into some NE to E aspects around 10,000ft near east beckwith with an HS in the 100 to 120 range. These couple of holes didn’t show any wet slab issues with water having already drained through the snowpack or the old depth hoar had at least become wet, and changing grain type. In the end, nothing too notable.

: Couple small wet slabs near or below 10,500ft W and SW aspects.

: ESE Marcellina. Wet rock between the snow fields but no notable running water at noon.

: East facing sup peaks of East Beckwith

crusts, corn, slides

CB Avalanche Center April 7, 20212020-21 Observations

Date of Observation: 04/07/2021
Name: Mark Robbins

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Location: upper slate drainage

Avalanches: Not sure when these ran or if they’ve already been documented. North end of Schuylkill ridge, probably ENE facing? And Purple Ridge near Poverty Gultch, SW facing. See photos.

Weather: Windy AF up high, in and out of clouds, cool air temps

Snowpack: Skiing just before noon, South facing at 12,500 showed minimal signs of softening. By 12,000 the top inch was soft. By 11,500 and SE exposure we got into full corn, 2-3 inches of soft snow. Mushy but still supportive by 10,500 at 12:15.

Photos:

Punchy Cement Creek

CBAC April 6, 20212020-21 Observations

Date of Observation: 04/06/2021
Name: Eric Murrow Zach Kinler

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Cement Creek drainage
Aspect: East, South East, South, South West, West, North West
Elevation: 9,000′ – 11,400′

Avalanches: Several gouging loose avalanches below treeline on east and west aspects (see photos). Views into the upper elevation terrain of Brush and Cement Creeks revealed far less recent wet avalanche activity than areas closer to Crested Butte. Did not observe any obvious Wet Slab activity, even on terrain features that had the same characteristics of observed Wet Slab avalanches nearer to Crested Butte.
Weather: Mostly clear skies transitioning to partly cloudy by mid-day. Moderate westerly winds at ridgetop. Temperatures cooled throughout the day.
Snowpack: Traveling on snowmobiles in the AM was fairly straightforward off-trail with minimal trenching, but as the sun softened, but never fully broke down, surface crusts in the afternoon, snowmobiling off-trail became a challenging task with relentless trenching. Traveled off-trail at 11,100′ and produced a collapse that traveled about 150′ causing around an inch or so of vertical displacement in the snowpack (see photo). Boot penetration in this area was consistently to the ground (see photo). Ski penetration was mostly supportive on surface crusts.

Dug a quick profile on a northwest aspect at 10,800′ with a depth of 100cm (similar snowpack to large collapse) and found meltwater had descended around 50cm down stopping just short of the weak bottom half of the snowpack. The upper 50cm of the snowpack was composed of a 15cm surface crust with 35cm of 4f+ slab (with ice columns present) resting on weak, moist depth hoar. I performed an extended column test and it failed on isolation. The bottom half of the snowpack was moist but did not appear to have been flooded with meltwater yet. Surface crusts on all terrain traveled remained intact during the day; some softened on sunny aspects, but a thin “egg shell” remained which helped to limit Wet Loose avalanche potential. Shoulder and shady aspects below treeline continue to have enough slab structure in the upper snowpack to present future Wet Slab concerns once the meltwater faucet turns back on.

Photos:

: Several small and one large, gouging Wet Loose avalanche on WSC Peak’s east side.

: Test profile from northwest slope not far from snowmobile triggered collapse. Depth hoar is moist and weak, but did not appear to have water drain through it yet.

: Large Wet Loose avalanche below treeline on east slope. Likely failed on 4/5 as debris did not show signs of sitting in the sun.

: Good example of boot penetration to the ground in this area where that snowpack was around 100cm deep. I took one step off old snowmobile tracks.

: Off-trail snowmobiling resulted in trenching and a large collapse.

More wet avalanches

CBAC April 6, 20212020-21 Observations

Date of Observation: 04/06/2021
Name: Eric Murrow Ben Pritchett

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Location: Slate River corridor to Angel Pass area
Aspect: North, North East, East, South East, South, South West, West, North West
Elevation: 8,900′. – 11.600′

Avalanches: Numerous recent wet avalanches on northeast through east through south through west aspects. Many were small, but some were large, gouging Wet Loose avalanches. A couple of recent Wet Slabs were observed as well. Two fresh avalanches occurred today on northeast slopes of Schuylkill Ridge – a full-depth Wet Slab below treeline and a gouging long-running Wet Loose avalanche.
Weather: Very warm temperatures with thin high clouds passing by through early afternoon. Light winds from southwest below ridgetop.
Snowpack: Spring transition is well underway, with no dry snow observed on any snow surfaces. Near treeline on a north facing slope, we found about 2 inches of wet polycrystals on the snow surface, with a moist snowpack below that showed signs of yesterday’s meltwater percolating down around a foot and a half deep. The recent meltwater was frozen into widespread horizontal ice lens, likely around old melt-freeze crust buried in mid March. We dug a profile adjacent to a 48 hour old Wet Slab avalanche. The avalanche and our test profile were located on steep southeast-facing slopes with signs of light wind-loading. We measured a 230-300cm deep snowpack. The top of the crown was around 12,000′ and our profile was at a similar elevation to the middle portion of the slab that released (~11,700′). We found a pooled layer of meltwater 50cm below the snow surface that had spread horizontally through an old layer of large-grained facets below a melt-freeze crust. This layer corresponded to depth of the avalanche’s flanks. The slab broke deeper (up to ~100cm) near the crown, higher on the slope. Snowpack tests were not relevant as too much water had flowed through the snowpack since the avalanche released. Generally, the snowpack was pencil hard, with a few harder layers of frozen melt water. We couldn’t determine the hardness of the wetted weak layer since it was a frozen mixture of previously weak facets, an old crust, and newly frozen horizontal and vertical ice masses.

Photos:

: Profile adjacent to a Wet Slab avalanche that ran on April 3rd. Profile dug ~48 hours after avalanche.

: A full-depth Wet Slab avalanche ran near the Schuylkill Ridge skin track on a northeast-facing slope below treeline. The avalanche released mid-day April 5th.

: 3 small Wet Slab avalanches that ran on April 5th on this east northeast-facing slope below treeline.

: A Wet Slab gouged to near the ground on the southwest-facing slopes below Gold Top (12,240′).

: A Wet Slab avalanche ran on on this alpine southeast-facing slope below Pt. 12,104′ around 1pm on April 3rd.

: Numerous small Wet Loose avalanches and a small, shallow Wet Slab in WSC Bowl of Mount Baldy.

: Wet Slab triggered by a loose avalanche on southwest aspect near Avery Peak. Likely ran April 3 or 4.

: Wet Slab triggered by a loose avalanche on easterly aspects above Pittsburg. Likely ran April 3 or 4.

: A Wet Slab avalanche ran April 4th, connecting to a gouging Wet Loose avalanche that ran April 3rd..

Evening avalanche obs

CBAC April 4, 20212020-21 Observations

Date of Observation: 04/04/2021
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Road tour
Aspect: West

Avalanches: A handful of additional D2’s that ran late in the day on westerly aspects, both wet slabs and wet loose. See photos for details.

Photos:

: D2s Red Ridge (westerly aspect)

: D2s Red Ridge (westerly aspect)

: D2 Double Top (westerly aspect)

: D2 Gibson Ride (east aspect, likely ran earlier today)

: D2 Mt. Crested Butte (westerly aspect)

: Wet loose that stepped down to wet slab in the Terminator Chutes

: D1.5 Mt. Crested Butte (Northwest aspect)

Dirty diaper obs. 3 p.m.

CBAC April 4, 20212020-21 Observations

Date of Observation: 04/04/2021
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Snodgrass TH

Avalanches: See photos. Continued large wet activity. Numerous D1.5 to D2.5 since yesterday’s visit to the same location at 4 p.m. Some may have run late yesterday, most likely ran today. In shallower terrain, there were more wet loose gouging to the ground and a few pulled out narrow wet slabs. Otherwise, more surface sluffs.
Weather: Mix of sun and clouds may have kept surfaces a bit cooler. Warm temps, calm winds below treeline.
Snowpack: Poor refreeze. Ski and boot pen was to the ground this afternoon on below treeline slopes.

Photos:

: D2s on Schuylkill Ridge. E/NE aspect

: Fresh D2 wet loose on Bellview (south aspect)

: Several deep gougers on Gothic (SE aspects)

: D2 wet pile off of Red Ridge (SE aspect)

: Numerous D1 wet loose on NE aspect of Scarp Ridge

: D1.5 to D2 slides off of Scarp Ridge, one broke as a narrow slab (east aspect)

: D1 to D1.5 dirt stains overlapping with yesterday’s D2 dirt stains (SW aspect)

: A bunch of tele skiers keeping slope angles mellow this afternoon. Nice job.

: D2 to D2.5 wet slabs, SW/W aspect of Red Ridge

: D1.5s on Peeler Peak (East)

: D2 Rustler Gulch (SW aspect)

Gothic debris pile

CBAC April 3, 20212020-21 Observations

Date of Observation: 04/03/2021
Name: Zach Kinler

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Gothic
Aspect: South West, West

Avalanches: Fresh wet debris pile below the west side of Gothic, ran late this afternoon. Estimated D2.5

Photos:

Gibson Ridge wet slide

CBAC April 3, 20212020-21 Observations

Date of Observation: 04/03/2021

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Gibson Ridge
Aspect: East
Elevation: BTL

Avalanches: Large wet avalanche ran today

Photos:

Wet activity ramping up

CBAC April 3, 20212020-21 Observations

Date of Observation: 04/03/2021
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Location: Anthracite Range and driving tour
Aspect: North, North East, East, South East, South
Elevation: 9,600 – 12,200

Avalanches: See photos. Large wet avalanche activity on the rise. We noted numerous natural D2 wet loose avalanches on all but due north aspects and at all elevations. Many of these gouged deep into the snowpack. Some ran today, some yesterday. Several large wet slabs, generally D2 in size, ran today. The one off of the east face of Gothic may have been up to D3 given the long runout (which was obscured from view).
Weather: Africa Hot.
Snowpack: We found frozen surfaces this morning and good corn skiing on due south aspects until about noon, at which point ski and boot pen quickly detoriated. On an east aspect below treeline around 1 p.m., we were triggering large pinwheels that gouged 12″ to 18″ deep. The most active aspects for wet activity were east and northeast where we traveled, but we left before westerlies had their fair share of sunshine.

Photos:

: East Beckwith (east aspect). D2 and D2.5 ran today.

: Storm Ridge (NE aspect). D2 and several D1 wet loose ran today around noon.

: Anthracite Range (NE aspect). Several D1 ran yesterday

: Anthracite Range (W/NW aspect). Several D1.5 ran yesterday

: Anthracite Range (South aspect) Two D2s likely ran yesterday

: West Elk Wilderness (East aspect). D2 wet loose, likely ran today.

: Anthracite Range (E/NE aspect). D1.5 wet loose

: West Elk Wilderness (ENE aspect). Several D1.5 wet loose ran today.

: Anthracite Range (West aspect). D1.5 ran yesterday

: Happy Chutes (NE aspect). D1.5 wet loose, ran today

: Happy Chutes (NE aspect) D2 wet loose, ran today

: Peeler Peak (East aspect) D1.5 to D2 wet loose and small slab, likely ran today.

: Scarp Ridge (E/NE aspect), D2 wet loose ran today.

: Gothic (E/SE aspect), D2 wet loose and D2.5? wet slab ran today.

: Bellview (S/SE aspect). D2 wet slab triggered by sluff, ran today

: Red Ridge (W/SW aspects). D1.5 to D2 wet loose ran today

Wet Slab Star Peak Zone

CB Avalanche Center April 3, 20212020-21 Observations

Date of Observation: 04/02/2021
Name: Ben A

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Star Ridge above Friends Hut
Aspect: South
Elevation: ATL

Avalanches: Wet slab triggered by wet loose late afternoon 4/2. Wet slab triggered below the rock band. Debris ran over the bench and triggered another wet slab.

Photos:

Page 119 of 508
←
1
...
118
119
120
...
508
→