Date of Observation: 03/29/2023
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Ruby Range, viewed from Mt. CB

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A couple of large cornice falls (Owen and Scarp Ridge), a handful of small wet loose on S-E aspects A/NTL, and a hot wind slab. These are new since I put binos on the same terrain yesterday around 11 a.m.
Weather: Clouds increased mid-day. Above freezing temps.

Date of Observation: 03/29/2023
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Perry Creek, viewed from Mt. CB

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Destructive natural persistent slab, S-SE aspect above Perry Creek, ran to the ground shortly below start zone. Turner spotted this one fresh yesterday afternoon.

Date of Observation: 03/28/2023
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Viewed from Hunter Hill and Carbonate Hill

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Documenting avalanche activity from last week.

Date of Observation: 03/28/2023
Name: Zach Guy and Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Cement Creek, Hunter Hill, Star Pass, and Carbonate Hill. Various aspects to 13,000′

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: An impressively wide persistent slab avalanche across the E/NE side of Teo Ridge looks fresh in the past 48 hours, 2300′ wide on Google Earth. Snowmobile triggered a couple of 2′ wind slabs above treeline, one remotely, one with a slope cut, and there were a few recent natural wind slabs. Documenting older avalanches from the past week in a separate ob.
Weather: Clear to few clouds, below freezing temps in the alpine. Light winds with transport on a few terrain features.
Snowpack: Recent wind slab formation was localized to terrain features with large fetches for northwest winds; they were sensitive to slope cuts on the 3/24 crust, which looks lightly faceted. No signs of deeper instabilities under the sled today. A pit on an east aspect near treeline produced non-propagating failure on the 3/20 faceted crust under a 55cm soft slab. Snow surfaces stayed cool enough to keep wet loose activity at bay; the only wet loose activity I saw was in the steep, cliffy terrain around Mt. CB this afternoon.

Date of Observation: 03/28/2023
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Viewed from Carbonate Hill and Slate River Road.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Large persistent slab (D2.5) on the SE side of Schuylkill Ridge ran this afternoon during the warmup. A handful of D1-D2 wind slabs in the Ruby Range that likely ran yesterday or overnight. A slab on East Beckwith (NE ATL) broke near the ground on a steep, shallow, rocky slope, sometime in the past 48 hours.

Date of Observation: 03/28/2023
Name: Irwin Guides

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Viewed from Irwin Tenure

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Several fresh wind slabs above treeline, new since yesterday afternoon. Likely ran overnight.

Date of Observation: 03/27/2023
Name: Jaime Odin

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Ascended/descended the south east shoulder of anthracite mesa to 10,400 ft

Observed avalanche activity: No
Snowpack: 1-2 ft of weak new snow present throughout the tour, with a mostly supportable crust underneath, except for in sheltered terrain, especially in dense timber. Average ski penetration ~30cm boot penetration ~60cm. At 10,400 ft on an open SE aspect 10 degree slope the surface height was 240cm. Underneath the top 25cm of new snow was an easily breakable crust with ~60cm of weak, faceted snow beneath. Another crust was beneath the facets but I did not dig under this second crust which was ~80cm beneath the surface. Pulling on an isolated column with a shovel easily broke a slab of the new snow at the first crust/facet interface, instilling little confidence in the current snow structure.

Date of Observation: 03/27/2023
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Upper Slate, Purple Palace area to 11,000′, traveling on easterly aspects.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Snowmobile cut an 18″ wind slab on Slate cut bank feature that catches efficient downvalley drifting. The slab failed on the 3/24 crust on a south aspect BTL.
Weather: Overcast, S-1 to S1 snowfall with an inch or two of accumulation today. Light northwest winds and light transport below treeline. Still coooold.
Snowpack: Dug several pits within a few hundred feet of each other on SE, E, and NE aspects below treeline. I got a mix of hard propagating and non-propagating results at the 3/20 interface. The east facing pit, which I dug just above an old crown, had the weakest looking structure and was the only pit that consistently produced unstable results. I did get one propagating result on northeast as well, but it was on an old graupel layer about 25 cm below the 3/15 crust, and the result was not repeatable.
No signs of instability while breaking trail.
There is about 10-12″ of dry recent storm snow above the 3/24 crust on southerlies in Upper Slate, and 4″ to 6″ above the crust closer to the trailhead. On easterlies, the snowpack has remained dry down to the 3/20 crust, 30″ deep. The upper foot or so is fist hard but dense enough that it isn’t dry sluffing.

Date of Observation: 03/27/2023
Name: Eric Murow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: HWY 135 observations

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Large avalanche ran in Red Lady Bowl – I would suspect it ran today while wind-loaded. Large natural avalanche on the easterly side of M-Face on Whestone. This avalanche appeared to break fairly deep with rocks exposed; this feature is unsupported from below.
Weather: I observed moderate wind-loading above treeline onto easterly aspects.
Snowpack:

Date of Observation: 03/27/2023
Name: billy barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic townsite

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: Second verse, same as the first. Obscured cloud cover with light, dense snowfall, most in the past 24 hours coming between sunset and around 2 a.m. with 3½” new snow and water 0.34″. The snowpack is back at 94½”. Light wind with some gusting and cool with the high 21, low 4 and the current 5.