Date of Observation: 04/01/2021
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Gothic
Aspect: East, South East
Elevation: 9500 – 12,600′

Avalanches: A D2 cornice fall off of the east face of Baldy, looked a few days old.
Some D2 wet loose debris below the east face of Gothic, likely from last weekend’s warmup.
We ski triggered some very small/shallow sluffs in the top few inches of snow.
Weather: Light ridgetop winds. Cold temps this morning, rapid warming through midday. Clear skies.
Snowpack: Made ya look. April Fools. Some small rollerballs and sluffing as the top few inches of recent snow became moist. Crusts below that snow (on E, SE aspects) remained frozen before noon. More snow for entrainment on northeasterly tilts where there aren’t underlying crusts.
The biggest problem that we were managing was large cornices. We stayed well away from them on ridgelines. On slopes overhung by cornices, we moved quickly with spotters/radios, regrouped away from their runouts, and traveled early in the day to reduce our risk.
Quick hand pits suggest that last week’s warmup only caused meltwater to move into the top 3 to 4 inches of snow on high elevation, southeast aspects, unless water channeled deeper near rocks or other preferential drainage networks.

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Date of Observation: 03/31/2021
Name: Andrew Breibart

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Snow course-Keystone
Aspect:
Elevation: BTL

Weather: calm, clear, and below freezing before 9AM

Snowpack: snow depth is 34 inches and snow water equivalent is 10 inches.
melt freeze crust. in the shade there was a trace of recent snow on melt freeze crust. Snow was fully supportive on skis and ski boots. at one sample point, we found an ice layer but not an ice lens 6 inches from the ground.

Date of Observation: 03/30/2021
Name: Billy Barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Gothic Townsite

Weather: Snow started near 11 p.m. and was steady but light through the night, though denser than of late. there hs been 3½” new with water 0.30″. Wind was strong at first getting lighter through the night and now almost calm. Currently overcast with light snow. the high was 45F, low 21 and the current 21. The snowpack is at 45″. billy

Date of Observation: 03/29/2021
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: West Brush Creek towards White Mountain
Aspect: North, North East, East, South East, South, South West, West, North West
Elevation: 9,000 – 12,300′

Avalanches: Lots of previous Wet Loose from steep sunny areas all small in size. Did not observe any fresh loose avi’s while in terrain between noon and 5pm. One fresh Wind Slab observed at 12k on NE slope.
Weather: Mostly clear skies with warm temperatures. Strong SW winds at upper elevations with gusty conditions below treeline. Snow transport was generally inefficient due to high speeds blasting snow into the atmosphere; isolated features picked up loading.
Snowpack: Traveled through a shallower part of the forecast area moving through shady slopes near and above treeline. Snowpack on north and northeast slopes at upper elevations was generally in the 130 to 180cm range. A test profile in a drifted location(northeast) with 200cm had a slab around 55cm thick (up to 1 finger hard) resting on the mid-March weak layer and did not produce results in standard test but hard hammering was able to get a propagating result. At a shallower location with HS around 135cm, I tested the basal weak layer which produced a moderate propagating result in the Depth Hoar (4-finger minus hardness) near the ground. Even though triggering a large avalanche in old, weak snow at the ground is on the low end of the probability scale, the variability of snow depth in this part of the forecast area made me a bit selective with my terrain choice by avoiding rocky, variable depth slopes.

Briefly traveled across a few sunny features between 10,000 – 11,200′ and found a few inches of wet snow at the surface, but no significant Wet Loose problem. I suspect some steep, wind-protected sunny slopes were in condition for human-triggered small Wet Loose slides. Low elevation northerlies became moist by the afternoon, but neighboring steep slopes did not produce any natural activity.

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Date of Observation: 03/29/2021
Name: Jack Caprio

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Mount Emmons
Aspect: North, North East, East
Elevation: 9k-12.5k

Avalanches: Small wet loose activity on east-facing slopes of all elevations. SW and W facing slopes had more wet loose activity below treeline due to winds keeping alpine surfaces cool. NE below treeline got in on the action too in the happy chutes (see photo).

Weather: Few clouds. Warm temps below treeline. The alpine was very breezy with consistent moderate SW winds along with strong gusts.

Snowpack: Isolated 2-5 inch wind pockets on NE and E facing terrain near ridgeline. Previous tracks from yesterday in a steep alpine chute had been erased overnight due to wind-loading. Although the wind slabs were very small, it was still enough of an issue for us to avoid a very steep, exposed, slightly cross-loaded chute. We chose to descend a steep, planar north-facing slope away from any ribs or other features prone to cross-loading. There were no signs of instability on our descent.

The snow stayed dry on due north slopes. Below treeline NE-E facing slopes became moist by early afternoon as expected.

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