Date of Observation: 02/04/2023
Name: Daniel Hogan

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Traveled up Copper Creek to get to gain the saddle above Zachary’s and continued up towards to check out the other side of the ridge. Skied down a bit to dig a pit just to looker’s left of the Zachary’s entrance with ETCP23 results that failed on the depth hoar layer around 30 cm above the ground surface.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Lots of small wet loose slides on south-southwest aspects.
Weather: Cool in the north/western protected valley, clear, between -12 to -5 C over the day.
Snowpack: Snow held up on north facing slopes, but had an inch or so crust in the sunny areas or anything that had a hint of a south facing aspect. Small runnels from melt water were visible on these south facing slopes.

Date of Observation: 02/03/2023

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Evan’s Basin

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Large natural slab avalanche out of Evan’s Basin. Guessing it ran yesterday (2/2)

Date of Observation: 02/03/2023
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Toured on southerly and northerly aspects from Scarp Ridge to Schuylkill Ridge through Peeler and OBJ basins.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Several small wet loose avalanches and a pair of soft slabs (~D1.5) on steep, sunbaked slopes that all appeared fresh in the past day or so, best guess is yesterday afternoon, based on the pattern of rollerballs associated with the slides. Also documented a handful of large slabs that ran during the last storm.
Weather: Strong inversion. Warm temps and strong sunshine on sunny slopes, just a few thin clouds. Calm winds.
Snowpack: Today’s goal was to cover ground and test a number of suspect slopes near and above treeline. Unfortunately, we are still getting consistent propagating results on the buried near surface facets and faceted crusts about two feet deep on all south and southeast slopes that we tested near treeline. These typically failed after additional loading steps (30 to 35 taps). I got non-propagating fractures on two pits on northerly aspects; one targeting a heavily drifted terrain feature above treeline adjacent to a large crown from the last storm (the slab was pencil hard). The other was a moderately drifted slope near treeline, 4F slab. I did not experience signs of instability underfoot except some rollerballs and pinwheels on sunny aspects.

Date of Observation: 02/02/2023
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Snodgrass front side.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A suspected remotely triggered avalanche and an adjacent ‘other’ avalanche. Maybe sympathetic maybe natural??
Weather: Clear skies, mild temperatures, and light winds.
Snowpack: I went to investigate the snowpack structure in an avalanche observation submitted on the morning of 2/2 ( original observation – https://cbavalanchecenter.org/solo-snod-surprise/ ). While driving to the Snodgrass TH, I observed another avalanche adjacent to the one reported. My observation comes from the looker’s right avalanche, not the one with the track next to it. This avalanche failed on a facet/crust layer in the middle of the snowpack; the total depth was around 3 feet with a 16-inch deep crown. I am uncertain of the exact interface date, but it was certainly prior to 1/27 which is the date for the last storm interface. Test results in two nearby places produced ECTN moderate and unstable ECTP 9 results. I think part of the avalanche failed above the crust and part of it failed below the crust. The bed surface was hard to make sense of due to warm temperatures from yesterday and the wet surface snow in the bed surface while I was on site around 2pm on Thursday. While exiting the crown site, I collapsed a portion of the hangfire, but it did not avalanche…likely due to lower slope angles. Sunny slopes in this area were wet in the top 2 inches of snow with another inch of moist snow below that.

Date of Observation: 02/02/2023
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Various aspects of Cement Creek, out to Tilton Pass to 12,000′

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Nothing today. A handful of D1 to D2 slab avalanches that likely ran during the most recent storm, all breaking in the upper snowpack and on near and above treeline slopes where there was wind drifting.
Weather: Beautiful day. Clear skies, light wind, inverted temps this morning.
Snowpack: Rode on more than a dozen small steep test slopes, mostly below treeline and a few drifted features near treeline without any signs of instability under the sled. Several stability tests suggest the most recent storm snow is unreactive in wind protected terrain. On a drifted south-facing slope, I got unstable results on a crust/facet layer about 45-50 cm deep under a 4F slab. One test in a shallow area (HS 85cm) produced a non-propagating failure on large-grained facets near the ground. Snow depths ranged from 80 cm at the trailhead to over 200 cm in the upper basin.

Photos:

Date of Observation: 02/01/2023
Name: Curtis B

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Southeast flanks of Snodgrass – we traveled along the low angle corridor of the cutoff trail

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Came across a set of solo ski tracks coming from the direction of the standard skin track: from the looks of it, the skier started descending one of the steep, south facing pitches above the Snodgrass trail and made a quick course correction after a large pocket released just to the skier’s left.
Weather: Sunny, high temp in low 20s
Snowpack: ~20cm of (now compacting) snow from the recent storm cycle, on top of the 1/27 interface. New snow was getting dense & warm on S. Facing terrain

Date of Observation: 02/02/2023
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Poverty Gulch to sunny side of Cascade and lap through Camo Glades.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Observed a couple more natural avalanches from the last cycle on south and southeast slopes below treeline (a 1cm melt/freeze crust was present below the storm snow on a slope below the south-facing avalanche). A couple very small natural loose avalanches ran from steep rocky areas on south side of the compass.
Weather: Clear skies, cold temps at valley bottom but mild temps above the inversion zone. Light northwest winds with occasional gusting. I observed a small bit of drifting off the highest terrain.
Snowpack: Snow surfaces warmed and became moist in the top 1.5 inches. Shaded slopes below treeline held around a 20 of recent snow; the slab remains very soft outside of wind-affected areas and did not produce any cracking on a steep sheltered slope. On a drifted near treeline features, I was able to get a small hunk of snow to break at the storm interface after significant stomping. It felt like there could be some drifted features capable of producing a large slab avalanche and a lesser chance for much smaller slabs in sheltered areas.

Date of Observation: 02/01/2023

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: North Northwest at 10,500’

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Skier triggered slide in shallow old growth forest with moderately spaced trees. Slope angle was 40* on a North Northwest slope at 10,500’. Crown was 3’-4’ and the snowpack had about 18 inches of depth hoar with another 18 to 24 inches of powder on top of it. Bed surface was at the ground.
Weather: Clear and cold.
Snowpack:

Date of Observation: 02/01/2023

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Standard red lady bowl, skied skiers left of main bowl then cut far left down through the lower bowl.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Skier triggered on a steep rollover which was fairly loaded up. My track was the 5th or 6th track on the feature before it went. The crown looked to be around 2ft.
Weather:
Snowpack: