Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 01/08/2020
Name: Evan Ross
Subject: Check On West
Aspect: West, North West
Elevation: 10,500ft-11,800ft

Weather: Overcast through most of the day, becoming partly cloudy in the late afternoon. Calm winds increased southwest in the late afternoon with snow plums off the high peaks. A few facets were blowing around in my area but there wasn’t much snow left to transport.

Snowpack: A concerning snowpack definitely exists on westerly slopes, but this setup is more isolated in the terrain when looking big picture and not as pronounced as some other aspects. The goal was to check snowpack structure and get more details about the concerning snowpack structure on west, but I couldn’t find a representable snowpack that was also in a safe location. Gully type terrain features near treeline are where the most concerning slab/weak layer characteristics existed in the terrain. Otherwise, snowpack structure was highly variable from all the past wind events and less concerning.

Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 01/08/2020
Subject: hoar, suncrusts, pow
Aspect: North, North East, East, South East, South
Elevation: 9200-11400

Avalanches: no new observed

Weather: chilly and blustery throughout the day

Snowpack: suncrust on southerlies was almost stout enough to support a skier at some points, but just soft enough to always break through and make for some creative turning. Growing surface hoar widely present north facing down low until maybe 10,500 or so, see blurry photo. Toured and skied north facing snow in the playground area and observed no signs of instability, with conditions ranging from supportive pow to wind stiffened pow to breaker windslab.

Photos:

Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 01/08/2020
Name: Joey Carpenter
Subject: PM Skook
Aspect: North, North East, East
Elevation: 9k-11.4k

Avalanches: One loose dry slough triggered from the ridge that had decent momentum and ran ~600 feet. Collected a good amount of snow, passed through trees & over a small rock band. Certainly enough to carry someone but not enough to bury them. R1D1.5

Weather: Wx couldn’t decide what it wanted to do this afternoon with the incoming storm. Started OVC/cool/calm, shifted to clear/calm, then BKN/20mph W wind, back to BKN/CALM, back to OVC/20MPH SW wind.

Snowpack: There was Moderate flagging as the wind was coming from the west. Some small stiff pockets as we traversed the ridge but protected areas remained creamy and generally unconsolidated/weak in the upper 25~35cm (est). Didn’t dig but pole probes could feel the firmer snow beneath the xmas and new years storms.

Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 01/08/2020
Name: Ian Havlick
Subject: Ruby Range Obs
Aspect: East, South East, South, South West, West
Elevation: 10-12,000ft

Avalanches: none.

Weather: Overcast skies in AM, then scattered skies with big jump in wind, late in day clouds redeveloped to overcast. West winds increased with gusts into the 60s this afternoon. Significant transport all elevations, thin windslabs developing late in day, but largely more distribution and sublimation than slab building.

Snowpack: no signs of instability, no crust formation, surface snow continues to facet. Recent bump in wind (re)moving any loose snow from all elevations

Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 01/07/2020
Name: Zach Kinler and Eric Murrow
Subject: Upper Slate River Valley
Aspect: North, North East, East, South East
Elevation: 9,600′-11,000′
Avalanches: No new avalanches observed.

Weather: Bluebird, a gentle whiff of westerly wind would cool us off every once in a while, temps hanging in the mid-upper 20s.

Snowpack: HS in this area averaged ~165cm at 11k on shaded slope. Surface was generally soft with little wind effect in the sheltered terrain traveled however surrounding open slopes at all aspects have been ravaged by the wind either stripping and scalloping the surface or depositing thin hard slabs. Low angle aspects south of east were slightly moist midday while shady aspects remained dry with light surface faceting.  Shovel Tilt Test revealed the 1/1, or New Years storm interface, easily slides with 20cm of low density snow above.   Investigated the 12/24 interface which was down 50 cm with a Fist to 1F- slab resting on top. Snowpack tests on this layer were CT23 Q1 and ECTN17. The other interface of interest is the 11/20 Depth Hoar which is rounding with short column test producing a DT21 Q1 result, 30 cm above the ground.

Photos:

Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 01/06/2020
Name: Zach Kinler and Eric Murrow
Subject: Quick lap out Poverty Gulch
Aspect: East, South East
Elevation: 8900′ – 10750′

Avalanches:  Observed a couple small wet loose avalanches on steep SSW facing slopes at 9700′, 4x – D1. I would guess that these loosies were a day or two old. Could see some debris that came out of a NE facing chute on Cascade. This debris looked to be blown over by the wind so more like 3 or 4 days old, D1. Also noticed some small dry loose skier triggerd slides on a very steep, NE facing feature near the exit of Wolverine Basin by Gun Sight Pass Road around 9600′, D1.

Weather: From 10am to 2pm, the area we traveled through was mostly cloudy with a cloud bank flowing over the Ruby Range with very light snow. Areas closer to Crested Butte looked to have a mostly sunny day. New snow accumulations were just a dusting with gusty winds out of the west.

Snowpack: Traveled through open E and SE facing terrain. HS for E slopes below treeline around 130cm. Dug a quick hole on a drifted SE feature at 10750′ to look at a location that has a slab resting on top of the mid-December sun crust. At this drifted site there was 50cm of snow resting on top of 12/24 crust, up to 1f hard. The crust was 3cm thick on this 30 degree slope. ECTX for this crust slab combination. There was light faceting above and below the crust but not dramatic.  Hammering on slab after standard test produced a failure above the crust. Snow surfaces below treeline on SE, S, and SW had a thin, around 1cm, weak crust at the surface from warming two days ago.
We stomped on a handful of very small drifted SE and E test slopes in the area without result.