Avalanches:
Weather: Clearing skies; Light-Mod WNW winds; High T* of +5C
Snowpack: Pic of PST result to go with previous obs

41* slope. NNE aspect at 9,500′

PSTEnd55/115 at 55cms down on 1/14 layer ?? Buried surface facets.

20160220PSTSnod

Avalanches:
Weather: Mostly Clear sky in the morning with scattered high thin clouds in the afternoon. Light winds.
Snowpack: Crazy cool snow surfaces in the open valleys bottoms, Washington Gultch, Slate, Gothic ect. Toney The Tiger like with leopard prints ranging from gleaming rain crusts, graupel pow and brown dusty patches.

Climbing out of the valley bottom the snow surfaces was either, melt-freeze/rain crust, graupel pow or some other version of dense snow. The snow surface was variable and hard to describe. A very soft crust was either scratchy under skis on the surfaces or under 1-4″ of dense new snow. Ski pen was around 5 to 10cm and boot pen around 15-20cm on easterly aspects. On these easterly aspects steeper slopes held dry snow through the day while 30 degree or less slopes had some hot cream on the surface.

No avalanche problems found in the terrain we travel No new wet loose avalanches observed on Gothic south-east.

Avalanches: 2 natural wind slabs that ran during last evening’s storm. SS-N-R1-D1-U. One on the NE face of Mt. Owen ATL, about 10-15″ deep and ~200 feet wide, and another on a heavily cross-loaded slope on Mt. Axtell, NE aspect below treeline. Looked about a foot deep and 20-30 feet wide. Most notable is a recent persistent slab that was triggered by a very large cornice fall sometime in the past 3 days. The cornice was about the size of a school bus, and the slab was estimated 2-4 feet deep, failing in a cliffy area below Scarp Ridge, E/NE aspect ATL. SS-NC-R1-D2-O. Maybe a hard slab?
Weather: Thin few to scattered clouds. Light west winds, no snow transport.
Snowpack: We got dusted. Drifting patterns are obvious from the color scale of snow: white snow indicates scoured snow; tan snow indicates drifted or pressed snow. Most west and southwest aspects were completely blown out back to Feb 18th crust. On E and SE aspects N/ATL and isolated cross loaded pockets elsewhere, we found ~3″ of pressed or cross loaded snow over the Feb 18th crust, from 4F to 1F+ hard. Appears to be bonded well to the crust; no signs of instability except one crack where there was a mid-storm graupel layer. Dozens of downed trees from the wind event.  On many slopes, stacks of old crust layers were peeled back by last evening’s winds, giving the illusion of widespread crowns. Very small wet loose and rollerballs below treeline to about 9,500 ft, indicating the rain line was around that elevation.  No signs of rain at or above 10,000 ft.

Recent cornice triggered persistent slab

Photo of the same slope taken 2/16, with large cornice above.

Avalanches:
Weather: Few clouds in the am and calm winds trending to moderate with strong gusts from the W SW AT 13:00 the top of Mt. Emmons. Warm temps.
Snowpack: Throughout the am light westerly winds kept the snow surface cool before turning moist on east and southeast aspects around 1200. No obvious signs of instabilities on slopes up to 36*.
Indy Basin: 10cm ski pen 45cm boot pen on the skiers left side near treeline. New snow preserved on west facing slopes 10cm of dry snow, dust on crust.
Elk Basin: SE facing shot from the ridge provided moist, dust on crust type skiing. Roller balls.
Evans Basin: The east wall looked blown out, roller balled and one small wet loose. The S line from gunsight looked clean and good skiing till the basin.
RLB: Variable, ripple to windboard. Dry snow till 10,600′ where the egress turned to mank.

Avalanches: No signs of instability
Weather: \Sunny and warm. Calm winds increasing to Moderate & gusting to Strong as the day went on.
Snowpack: Some light transport, not much snow available for transport because of crusty surfaces.