Avalanches:
Weather: Scattered high clouds, Light to Mod winds with stronger gusts at ridge top keeping things cool.
Snowpack: BTL South had a double crust facet sandwich beneath 10cms of melted surface snow as of 1000. ATL South had 40cms of 4F wind loaded snow on a MF crust (that was mostly supportive) providing Resistant Planar failure character as of 1300. ENE 38* terrain had mostly all F and 4F snow with a variable height of snow from 150cm to 80cms based on previous avalanche activity. Compression Test were showing Easy to Mod results at the ground, but lacked propagation. Thin MF crusts observed on BTL SE aspects, and as of 1600 BTL ENE terrain had full depth faceted snowpack that was moist in the top 15cms and was capped with a thin, breakable MF crust. No instabilities seen or felt throughout the day.

Avalanches: One large glide avalanche above upper slate past Pittsburg on a near treeline, east facing slope. Looked like significant movement since thursdays storm with clean patch between thursdays dusty snow and slab. Failure looks imminent, and would consists of entire snowpack since xmas cycle when this slope likely last slid.
Weather: Periods of high clouds and warm temperatures above freezing to treeline. Light westerly breeze 10-15mph with a few gusts into the 20mph range.
Snowpack: Snow was generally quite consolidated and supportive with minimal ski penetration, even in afternoon around 1400 with full softening and melting of crusts on south and southwesterly facing slopes. Shadier and lower angled slopes still held creamier, colder graupel and windblown dusty patches. No signs of instability.

slick E-SE-S facing slopes on Schuykill Ridge int he Slate River

dusty snow

glide cracks/avalanche past pittsburg (NTL, E-facing)

wider view of glide avalanche

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.