Date of Observation: 12/26/2020
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Location: Slate River to Poverty Gulch
Aspect: East, South East, South, South West, West, North West
Elevation: 9000′ – 11600′

Avalanches: A grouping of small loose avalanches near treeline on southwest aspect – guessing wet from warm weather on Christmas
Persistent Slab on west aspect of Baldy – few days old, likely from wind event on Wednesday/Thursday timeframe
Weather: Pleasant above the inversion zone with calm winds below treeline and light winds near treeline – no blowing snow observed
Snowpack: Just a rec ski day with no signs of instability underfoot on steep southwest slopes, or lower-angled easterly slopes. Not many slopes in the alpine in this area looked like good skiing; lots of breaker-crust-looking conditions and wind erosion on others. In early afternoon steep southwesterly slope softened just enough to make for some decent turns.

Photos:

Date of Observation: 12/26/2020
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Aspect: North, North East, East
Elevation: 9,500-12,000

Weather: Pleasant temps above the inversions, calm wind, clear sky.

Snowpack: Primary traveled N and NE, with just a little E. Primary traveling just above, or through, start zones on Axtell. While checking on the Persistent Slab Avalanche Problem. In this terrain, the slabs have become more specific, borderline isolated, and were stubborn to trigger. The previous wind has damaged many of these slopes at all elevations. Outside of checking on this avalanche problem, I would have no desire to otherwise recreate in this area given the below-average snowpack and snow quality.

Below Treeline: The slabs are fading away. Especially below about 10,500ft. Potential avalanche problems at the general BTL elevation were isolated and small. Given the below-average snowpack, even a small slab avalanche would be a nasty ride into trees and all the exposed ground hazards. The best place to find that isolated slab would be on some blown up, cross-loaded portion of a terrain feature. Fairly good distribution of SH below ~11,000ft.

Near Treeline: The same story as lower elevations, a decaying slab. The difference between weak layer grain size/hardness and the slab’s grain size/hardness has become less dramatic. Stoping through plenty of undisturbed snow produced no collapse or shooting cracks, while one ECT test had an ECTP14 SP on the 12/10 interface. The only collapses and shooting cracks, were on NE to E facing slopes, in the Wind Wales right near ridgeline. These results were again stubborn and difficult to produce. The biggest cracks only shot about 10 feet and wouldn’t even connect through the wind-loaded portions of the slope. The previous wind-loading didn’t extend very far into these slopes.

Above Treeline: Didn’t spend much time traveling above treeline on this tour. Looking around it’s more of the same up there. Hard slabs and wind erosion. The snow surface is absolutely ugly looking, wind effected, on many slopes.

Date of Observation: 12/26/2020

Name: Jack Caprio

Zone: Kebler Pass Area

Location: Splains Gulch

Aspect: North East, East

Elevation: 9400′-10400′

Avalanches: Two small (D.5 and D1), older avalanches that failed on the 12/10 interface at some point over the last two weeks. The slides failed on small convexities on east-facing slopes below treeline.

Weather: Bluebird. Mild temps. Little to no wind.

Snowpack: We traveled mostly on E aspects below treeline. The snow depth ranged from 60-80 cm. Recently developed surface hoar is widespread below 10,000′, and spotty above that. While touring on a common skintrack, we did not notice any collapsing or whumphing. After venturing off the skin track a short distance, we still did not get any visual or audible signs of collapsing.

Staying skeptical about the persistent slab problem, we tried some stability tests which gave us propagating results. ECTP18. The column initiated on 3-4 mm faceted grains just below a 2 cm MF crust (12/10 interface). With our mild weather, signs of instability seem to be becoming less blatant, however, our persistent slab structure on N-E facing terrain continues to linger around.

Photos:

Date of Observation: 12/24/2020
Name: Joey Carpenter

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Location: LJ
Aspect: South, South West, West, North West
Elevation: 9.4-10.6

Avalanches: Repeater path on purple ridge, Natural (photo from SL)

Saw another large D2 sized natural on the E facing ridge near Angel Pass. We were very far away, no photo.
Weather: Clear and cold in the morning. Temps were around zero at the TH at 900 and made it into the mid twenties by 2p. Wind was calm overall in areas we traveled but large plumes from Northerly winds were transporting large amounts of snow above the S Baldy bowl for much of the morning. NTL and ATL terrain that has any western tilt has been ravaged by the wind event on 12/22. Even relatively sheltered terrain in the Western compass has seen significant impact from wind in this area.
Snowpack: Cracking and collapsing are the world we live in. The snowpack is very weak, encouraging us to be exceptionally careful. The difference today, from the past two weeks, is the feedback is less predictable, less consistent, and larger. Collapses that would’ve propagated short distances two weeks ago are now impacting much larger swaths of the snowpack as slabs stiffen. The most notable of the 30+ collapses we got today was on a lap track that we’d traveled on earlier in the day. We got 3 large collapses with accompanying cracks on slopes approaching 30 degrees in an area that had already been impacted by skier weight twice.