Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 02/28/2020
Name: Ben Pritchett
Subject: Kebler Pass Obs
Aspect: South East, South, South West
Elevation: BTL

Avalanches: Very minor natural Loose Wet activity. Not a shed cycle.

Weather:

Ridgeline Wind Speed: 5-10 mph
Ridgeline Wind Direction: NW
Wind Loading: None
Temperature: 37 F
Sky Cover: Few
Depth of Total Snow: 200 cm
Weather Description: Cooker afternoon with high thin clouds trapping radiation.

Snowpack: Some shiny-looking areas of saturated snow. Surfaces wetted down to first crust in the upper snowpack on south and southwest facing slopes. It became easy to pull about 2″ of wet snow on the crust, which corresponded to the few shallow Loose Wet avalanches observed. Sunnyside of east and due west became crusted, but could not pull loose wet with hand tests on steep slopes.

Photos:

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 02/28/2020
Name: MR and SL
Subject: Spoon sluff
Aspect: South
Elevation: 11,400

Avalanches: Skier triggered wet loose avalanche, triggered just above the mostly filled in steep roll in the spoon, broke predictably and ran slowly so was easy to avoid, but wouldn’t have been fun to be in. Ran 150 feet and 30 feet wide, stopping just before some older debris. Was skiing around noon, a little later than we intended.

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 02/27/2020
Name: Zach Kinler

Aspect: North, North East, East, South East

Elevation: 9,000-10,200

Avalanches:

No new avalanches observed.

Weather: Stunning bluebird day, FEW high clouds drifting over. Temps near freezing with light NW breeze occasionally gusting to moderate.

Snowpack: Toured below tree line on the north side of Mt. Emmons on E-N aspects. HS 130- 160 cm. No signs of instability while skiing on slopes up to 35 degrees or stomping small test slopes greater than 35 degrees. Profiled E and N aspects targeting the early February interface. This layer was 43 cm down on E and 60 cm down on N. ECTX on both slopes however on E the 1st loading step after the standard test got propagating results. Both produced PST END results with E 35/100 and N 40/100. Due east surfaces remained dry while any aspect south of east became moist.

Photos:

East aspect 10,000′

PST 35/100 (END) East 10,000′

North aspect, 9600′

PST 40/100 (END) North 9600′

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 02/26/2020
Subject: RMBL Study Plot 2/26/20
Elevation: 9500

Photos:

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 02/26/2020
Subject: Coney’s – propogating results
Aspect: East
Elevation: 9900

Weather: Sunny, cloud cover was BKN-, light wind from the south.

Snowpack: See snowpilot upload.

Photos:

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 02/26/2020
Name: Steve Banks
Subject: Gothic Obs
Aspect: North, East, South, South West
Elevation: 9,600-11,200

Avalanches: Wind slabs, persistent slabs, cornice falls and facet sluffs-we saw it all! Nothing from today, likely Feb 24/25. Large cornice falls triggering not so big slabs on NE facing very steep terrain on Gothic. A PS D2 viewed up on Rustlers Gulch ATL South Facing. Wind slabs on S facing of Belleview ATL. Full depth fast running Facet Sluff NE facing BTL in Copper Creek.

Weather: Sunny AM warmed nicely into the low 20’s. Light winds increased to moderate as clouds increased. Snow flurries by 14:00 with no accumulation Significant blowing snow again. Snow, wind and clouds dissipated as the sun set.

Snowpack: It’s shallow out here! Less snow and more facets than other drainages. Newly formed windboard in most exposed places. Closer to Gothic townsite the snowpack is 40-100 cms average. Depth improves as you move toward Baldy/Belleview. Recent storm totals near 30 cms at higher elevations, redistributed all over. New zipper sun crust formed today from green housing on southerly BTL/NTL slopes.