Date of Observation: 02/20/2021
Name: Michael Futch
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Red lady bowl below red coon ridge
Aspect: South
Elevation: 12000
Avalanches: Saw it from the skin track, looks like it started from the ridge
Weather: Calm wind, 14 degrees, partly cloudy
Snowpack:
Photos:
Date of Observation: 02/19/2021
Name: Eric Murrow Zach Kinler
Zone: Northwest Mountains
Location: Elkton Hills
Aspect: South East, South, South West
Elevation: 9,400′ – 11,200′
Avalanches: While on pavement observed a small, fresh Wind Slab in Red Lady Bowl and a large avalanche above treeline on SE slope of Timbered Hill.
Weather: Partly cloudy to mostly cloudy skies along Ruby Range with a few snowflakes and generally light winds below treeline. Snow transport observed above treeline throughout the day.
Snowpack: Traveled across some sunny slopes between 10k and 11.2K. No signs of instability observed with supportive snowpack to skis and boots. Dug a couple of test profiles on southerly slopes in the area (see photos). Test results suggested stubborn or ‘hard to trigger’ results. Slabs were generally 100cm or greater in thickness above concerning weak layers. One test profile was adjacent to a deep natural avalanche from last weekend with PST 90/125 end result in a previously drifted portion of the slope. The weak layer was slightly moist and rounding at two locations where buried 100cm or deeper. Collapsing deeply buried crusts seems to be possible at a thin spot in the slab, but far from likely through this terrain. Southerly slopes had dry surfaces in terrain traveled.
Photos:
Date: 02/19/2021
Author: Jack Caprio
Zone: Crested Butte Backcountry
3 separate loading events produced some impressive avalanches. Check out the full weekly recap here.
Date of Observation: 02/18/2021
Name: Eric Murrow Evan Ross
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Slopes below Gothic Rd above East River Valley
Aspect: North, North East, East
Elevation: 9400′ – 9800′
Avalanches:
Weather: Partly cloudy, cool temps, and light winds below treeline.
Snowpack: Moved through an area with shallower snow depths – generally around 90 – 120cm. Many slopes in this area ran naturally around 2/13. Slab thickness in this area was around 60 to 90cm. Ski penetration was around 6″. We experienced a good number of collapses…some by jumping, others just walking about. Some collapses may have traveled a couple of hundred feet producing cracks in one instance. Several collapses occurred immediately above steep northeasterly-facing slopes without cracking or avalanching on slopes below. Overall snowpack structure in this area looks very poor with 1finger slabs resting above well-developed, fist hard Depth Hoar (see image). Test results at two different sites with snow depths of 90cm and 115cm produced ECTP moderate results.
Photos:
Date of Observation: 02/18/2021
Name: BIlly Barr
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Avery diamond
Aspect: South West
Elevation: above treeline
Avalanches: Fresh avalanche observed on Avery Diamond
Weather:
Snowpack:
Photos:
Date of Observation: 02/18/2021
Zone: Northwest Mountains
Location: Slate
Aspect: North East, South West, West
Elevation: BTL
Avalanches: Two pockets pulled out across the valley that I did not see earlier. None seen near, around or above us except for some small surface stuffs.
Weather: awesome
Snowpack: I did not dig, probe or prod so I cannot say. Punched through the “midpack” on one old man air onto short 38-degree pitch did not propagate anything. Ski pen 8-10 inches when skiing.
Photos:
Date of Observation: 02/17/2021
Name: Steve Banks
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: RLG
Aspect: North, South East
Elevation: 9800-11800
Avalanches: Looks the the “Spade” on the north side of Whetstone ran again Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. See photo.
Weather: Sunny am with increasing clouds and overcast by noon. Warm-ish with minimal wind
Snowpack: Dry, supportive, fun! Seems like we have developed a snowpack finally. Still variable but mostly supportive to skis. No collapsing or crack while on the established skin track. Hints of a sun crust on SE-S facing slopes but mostly cold, dry snow.
Photos:
Date of Observation: 02/17/2021
Name: Evan Ross Eric Murrow
Zone: Northwest Mountains
Location: Slate River
Elevation: 9,000-12,000
Avalanches: There were two notable avalanche events from the last 24 hours. A pair of deep and wide propagating avalanches, above treeline, on an E-SE facing ridge of Treasury Mountain. Call it a couple of D3’s. The other avalanche in the last 24hr was a soft slab avalanche, NE facing terrain, above treeline, off scarps ridge, D2. These avalanches probably release yesterday evening during the period of increased winds.
Otherwise, there are loads of D2-D3 avalanches. The noticeable ones would have all released roughly between 2/12 and 2/14. We’ll just round it to Saturday 2/13 and lump them into last weekend’s natural avalanche cycle. These were all persistent slab avalanches releasing deeply into the snowpack and some propagating very wide across terrain features.
Of other particular note was all the avalanche activity on the west and southwest side of Anthracite Mesa. Some of those avalanches have been previously reported. In summary, there are about 5 D2’s and a few other D1.5’s on NTL type terrain.
Unfortunately by the time we got to a good vantage point flat light was setting in. So many crowns are hard to see in photos.
Weather: Calm winds. Clear sky became overcast in the afternoon.
Snowpack: Didn’t find the same recent snow totals out the slate and on the flanks of Baldy, that were recently reported from Irwin. Around 4″ of new snow on a soft crust was common in that area. While the overall feel was much deeper given the lovely consistent snowfall we’ve seen lately. We observed one good collapse, but it didn’t produce any cracking on steeper nearby slopes. Otherwise, we were traveling on a constantly deep snowpack greater than 150cm’s and didn’t notice any signs of instability.
Date of Observation: 02/17/2021
Name: billy barr
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Weather: Very light, dense off and on snow Wednesday and into the night before clearing and much colder. There was 1½” new snow with SWE of 0.14″. Snowpack continues to settle and is at 52½”. Currently clear and with with the high 28F, the low -10 and current -09. Wind is calm. The snow is setting up faster now.
Date of Observation: 02/16/2021
Name: Ian Havlick
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Coneys with visibilitiy to surrounding backcountry
Aspect: North East, East, South West, West
Elevation: 9000-11,200
Avalanches: Fresh D2+ avalanche west facing Gothic. Impressive propagation and crown depth zig zagging into treed terrain and skipping over terrain features. Debris ran long into runout, though not to historic trim lines. Looked to have failed as a storm slab or windslab above treeline and propagated horizontally at near treeline elevation. Observed a number of other D2 sized pockets in obscure undulating terrain near rock Creek and Elkton, though visbility was poor enough to prevent good photos. These smaller slides (<5) failed on south to southeast facing terrain BTL.
Also, observed D2+ avalanches on NW facing Double Top in Brush Creek as well as D2 avalanche on SW facing slopes above Deer Creek.
Weather: snow showers, bried S2. Accumulations <3″ in Washington Gulch, though multi day storm totals in the 24″ range.
Snowpack: increasing depth to ~120-140cm, still weak facets near ground. New snow pasted, generally right side up density strucutre.
Photos:
