Date of Observation: 03/16/2023
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Hwy 135 obs.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A few natural avalanches seen from the pavement. A couple small slabs in the storm snow in Green Lake Bowl on Axtel, a large avalanche in the Octagon area on Whetstone that appears to fail below the past two storms (3/10), a small avalanche on Red Mountain (could be from the warm up on Tuesday, but I suspect occurred Wednesday night/Thursday morning, and a west-facing avalanches on Round Mountain that I believe failed during warming on Thursday (looks like it failed on 3/10 interface).
Weather:
Snowpack:

Date of Observation: 03/16/2023
Name: Grant Robbins

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Skinning up Snodgrass and across the valley appeared to be an avalanche on south aspect of Red Ridge area.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes

Date of Observation: 03/16/2023
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Mt Axtell and Evans Basin. N-E-S 9,500ft to 11,600ft.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A variety of old storm slabs and loose snow avalanches that were no longer sharp looking.

East on Mt Axtell: Skier triggered 3 storm slabs. 2 small slabs were triggered on steep, unsupported pillows and didn’t have much propagation. The most notable propagated fairly wide on another steep east-facing slope at 11,300ft. The slab was about 30cm deep, and the avalanche became large in size. These slabs released on very small facets sitting on the 3/15 interface.

East in Evans Basin. Snowmobile triggered 2 small, stubborn, wind slabs that ran within the new snow, and not at the old snow interface like on Axtell.

Several small loose wet avalanches ran today in Evans Basin on E and SE slopes at NTL and ATL elevations.

Weather: Parly cloudy sky. Mostly light to calm winds. Previous transport from stronger winds in the lower Kebler corridor.

Snowpack: The Recent HST is in the range of 15 to 35cm depending on how much settlement it has seen. Similar to yesterday, east aspects produced the most notable results today, with a few soft slabs failing on the recent storm interface. They have been running on small facets above the 3/15 crust. We triggered 3 slabs on this interface. A couple ran on steep and unsupported pillows. The most notable ran on a nice plainer 40-something-degree slope. Interestingly, in the afternoon I targeted the same aspect in Evan’s Basin and was unable to get any results on the same interface on steep E and SE test slopes. The loose snow avalanches and wind slab avalanches in Evans Basin also didn’t produce results on the 3/15 interface like we had seen over on Axtell.

Steep northerly facing slopes skied nice, with a few slow-moving sluffs and one small wind slab.

Date of Observation: 03/16/2023
Name: Mark Robbins

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Amr

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Natural storm sluff in the playground, see photo

Weather: Cool air temps in the morning but the sun was doing its thing on southerlies by midday. Moderate NW winds, some evidence of wind transport in amr tenure, more evidence of cross loading over in the playground, see photo. Winds had stiffened some of the new snow on north facing terrain.

Date of Observation: 03/16/2023
Name: West Elk Air

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Anthracite Range

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A large natural avalanche that appeared to break 2-3’ deep below last weekend’s storm snow (3/10 interface)

Date of Observation: 03/16/2023
Name: billy barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic

Weather: Steady generally light snow during Wednesday picking up after dark with the heaviest coming the couple hours around midnight before stopping soon after. Total 24 hour snow was 11″ with water content of 1.03″- again very dense and wet snowfall. Snowpack sits at 87″ deep, the deepest this winter. Currently mostly cloudy with a light SW wind. Yesterday’s high was 37 and today’s low, and the current, is 20F.

This snowpack is dense and deep and it makes me worry about spring slides as not much big has run this winter so there is a lot of snow up there.

Date of Observation: 03/15/2023
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Mostly traveled between 10,200ft and 11,200ft on a variety of aspects in Washington Gulch.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: If a D1 had a baby, I found it. Triggered two very small storm slabs on east-facing slopes where slope angles were over 40 degrees. These slabs failed just above yesterday’s crust. several other similar test slopes didn’t produce results.

Pushed a few thick sluffs down steep slopes, but they never ran far and mostly just accordioned in the top 2 to 3 inches of moist now.

Weather: Between noon and 4pm, obscured sky with mostly S-1 to S1 snowfall. Calm winds.

Snowpack: HST was 4 to 5″. I didn’t observe an increase in the HST while out, though some water was accumulating. Calm winds and no active wind-loading were observed, though I did find a couple of drifts up to 30cm thick that must have formed during stronger winds this morning or last night. At higher elevations, there was a density change in the storm snow, with lower-density snow at the bottom of the developing storm slab. However, those slabs were just not thick enough yet to produce results. The cleanest sheers I observed were on SE and E-facing slopes with the developing storm snow producing clear shears just above yesterday’s crusts.

Pushed a few thick sluffs down steep slopes, but they never ran far and mostly just accordioned in the top 2 to 3 inches of moist now.

Date of Observation: 03/15/2023
Name: billy barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic townsite

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Lots of loose slide activity off steep slopes yesterday but overall surface snow is solid.
Weather: Obscured cloud cover with scattered light snow overnight and just 1″ new but yet again dense with 0.11″ of water. The snowpack is 77½” deep and very hard. Currently light snow and no wind. On the lighter side, my water line froze in November so i have had no running water all winter, but for joy, now my roof is leaking so i have running water- down the side of my walls. Whoopee.

Date of Observation: 03/14/2023
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Viewed from Schuylkill Ridge and Purple Palace.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Documenting additional storm slab activity from the last cycle on the Slate, most of which ran 3/11.

Date of Observation: 03/14/2023
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Took a lap on Schuylkill Ridge and Purple Palace, traveling mostly on east and northeast aspects N/BTL.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A handful of small wet loose and two small storm slabs that either ran today or yesterday during the warm sunny weather. The storm slabs were about a foot thick on Peeler Peek, on east and northeast aspects, triggered by sluffs.
Like elsewhere, the Slate saw a significant storm slab cycle during the last storm, with lots of evidence of moving snow, partially filled in crowns and debris. The most notable slides were two off of the Great Wide Open that reached valley floor, one off of the west side of Baldy that crossed the slate, and all of the W/SW gullies off of Gothic produced large slides.
Weather: Partly cloudy skies, mild temps, light winds.
Snowpack: No signs of instability underfoot apart from some minor rollerballs. Stability tests on E and NE aspects produced non-propagating results on the storm interface down about 60 cm. On a SE aspect near treeline, we got repeatable propagating results (ECTP19, ECTP21) on a faceted crust down 80 cm, which was the 2nd crust from the top of the snowpack.
Snow surfaces got wet on all but the northern quadrant. Surface crusts transition from very soft and thin on northeast, to much thicker due south. I found dry, recrystallized grains developing above the crust on NE, E, and SE aspects. These were cooked off on due south. On north aspects, the snow surface was a mix of decomposing/fragmented grains and graupel. There was some surface hoar growth below 10,000′ feet this morning, but that appeared to be cooked or evolving into the near-surface facets above the crust.