Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 11/25/2018
Name: Eric Murrow

Subject: Avalanche Activity from Gobbler storm
Aspect: North, North East, East, South East, South
Elevation: 9400′ to 12000′

Avalanches:

oh man, there are remains of nearly countless slides looking down the Ruby Range. Avalanches were focused on N, NE, and E with a few others on SE. Lots of avalanches at all elevation bands. Slides ranged from very small D1’s, tons of D2’s and one D2.5 off of Purple Ridge on a NE aspect. Take a look at photos below for a sampling. Based on refilling of crowns and bed surfaces, avalanches failed throughout the storm. Some crowns very near each other had failed hours apart, one would look fresh with no refill, and other places partially refilled, and others were basically fully refilled but were discernable because of debris shaped piles in aprons.  These photos are a small representation of whats out there.

Weather: Cold and clear, blowing snow off highest peaks early morning, but light winds BTL and NTL during tour from 1030 to 400
Snowpack: Toured around S, SE, and E aspects NTL on Baldy Mountain. Snow has settled significantly w/ ski pen about 6″, supportive. While walking through lower angle sections facing South and East, our group experience several collapses that spread up to 100’+.

Poked a few holes, on E and SE aspects near tree line. SE NTL had developed 50 to 60cm slab from last storm and was strong 4finger close to 1finger hardness, on SE slab was resting on thin layer of 1 to 2mm facets. E aspect NTL presented similar thickness and hardness slab resting on weak old snow – 90cm HS.

Photos:

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 11/25/2018
Name: Sean Feese

Subject: Shred lady glades
Aspect: East, South
Elevation: 12600

Avalanches:

Obvious slide from early party in rlb.. apparently triggered from cutting or stomping the summit cornice. Natural slide on east face of Garfield (D2), natural on saddle between Richmond and Hancock (D2 east facing). A few more naturals all on east facing slopes.

Weather: Clear sunny skies, very light winds. Cold
Snowpack: Thin, wind affect. Westerly winds definitely contributed to loading on east faces. Storm slab over facets. Heard some whomping, no cracking. Redwell is looking strange and quite wind affected. Glades skied nice, thin up top and down low.

Photos:

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 11/25/2018
Name: Max K

Subject: Snodgrass
Aspect: North East
Elevation: 11,000

Avalanches:

Top of first bowl slid sometime during the storm. Couldn’t see slide dimensions, and crown had been partially filled back in.

Weather: Clear, cold, calm wind
Snowpack: Still very reactive, multiple collapses and cracking, especially on the northern side of the compass. Dug on a 20* previously windloaded feature at 11k. Easy, repeatable failures on facets 65 cm below surface. HS 120 cm.

Photos:

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 11/24/2018
Name: Eric Murrow

Subject: Washington Gulch storm obs
Aspect: North, North East, East
Elevation: 9500′ – 10100′

Avalanches:

Two naturals midday ran on small steep slopes above Meridian Lake.

Weather: Overcast skies with light snow and light winds with moderate gust until around 2pm – then snow ramped up to s2 with moderate winds with strong gusts.
Snowpack: HS around lower flanks of Coneys ranged from 50 to 70 cms, about 40cm of new snow (lots of rimed PP and graupel mixed in). At 2pm, right as snow ramped up, measured 16″ new w/ 1.65SWE at 9800′. While ascending lower flanks of Coneys collapsing and cracking was relentless, pretty much every piece of terrain was barking instability.

Photos:

Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 11/24/2018
Name: Than Acuff

Subject: Pittsburg
Aspect:
Elevation:

Avalanches:

Plenty of pockets moved in the morning prior to, or as we were climbing up
in and out of trees on slopes steeper than 30 degrees. Potential for
partial burial but could be worse if ended up head down against trees.
Anything less steep would just crack to the ground and not move.

Weather: warm, snowy off and on, mostly graupel
Snowpack: 2-3 feet deep, sand on sugar, unconsolidated. Plenty of settling and
cracking the entire way up skin track and ski down. Looked like another
8-10 inches sitting on skin track and old slide paths from yesterday. Ski
pen entire pack.

Photos:

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 11/24/2018
Name: Aaron Peterson

Subject: Cracking Convexities at Coney’s
Aspect: North East
Elevation: 9,500- 10,300’

Avalanches:

We did not venture into steeper terrain to investigate any further. Soft slabs were readily apparent and shifting on 25* slopes. It seemed likely for them to propagate on anything steeper.

Weather: 900am – 1200pm. Overcast, calm, high 20s. Light snow, S -1 to S1, changing to light graupel by late morning.
Snowpack: We noted collapsing and shooting cracks along the skin track at valley bottom, 9,500’, with a layer of very weak facets at ground level. Slightly better cohesion was apparent on open, low-angle, NE facing slopes just below 10,000’. As we ascended through the trees to 10,300’, widespread shooting cracks and collapsing returned. These were especially reactive on any convex terrain features over 20*. A soft crust was apparent roughly 10cm/4” down, however most activity seemed to happen on the faceted snow at ground level. Average snow depth in the trees at this elevation was around 60cm.

Photos:

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 11/24/2018
Name: Crested Butte Ski Patrol

Subject: CBMR Observations
Aspect: North, North West
Elevation: BTL/NTL

Avalanches:

Several R1-D1 avalanches triggered from ski cuts failing on basal facets at the ground N-W aspects NTL/BTL. There were also numerous R1-D1 remotely triggered slides from skis and machinery on the ski hill. The snow pack was touchy bordering on very touchy throughout all the terrain we traveled within the last day. All of the obs. are from areas that have not been affected by skier traffic of avalanche mitigation work this season.
CBSP observed 3 natural avalanches on 11/24 NTL N-W aspects.
SS-R2-D1- O/G-N
SS-R3-D1-O/G-N
SS-R2-D1-O/G/N

Weather: Light snow in the AM with moderate W winds. Sky remained obscured throughout the day with winds increasing at noon gusting to strong. Precip. rate increased at 2:30 snowing s5 at times with winds shifting from the N. Temps in the AM 19F the high for the day and dropping to 14F by 4:00 PM.
Snowpack: Before the storm HS of 14″ of faceted weak snow. The night of 11/22 Mt CB received 8″ .6″ SWE of new followed by another 8″ on the night of 11/23 w/ .6″ SWE, and another 7″ new during the day of the 24th. During the day of the 22nd and 23rd the storm slabs were not that consolidated Fist hard. NTL and BTL on both days there was wide spread collapsing and cracking but cracks were not propagating very far( Avg. 10-20′). ATL N/O

Photos:

Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 11/24/2018
Name: Alex Tiberio

Subject: Cracking and collapsing below tree line
Aspect: North East, East
Elevation: 9,500-10,000

Avalanches:
Weather: Snowing with limited visibility
Snowpack: Widespread collapsing cracking and whomping all failing on facets near the ground. Didn’t travel in terrain over about 30 degrees.

Photos: