Avalanches: Manny old D1-2 slabs form the last natural cycle in the area, on northeasterly slopes in the high 30 degrees or near 40 degree range.
Weather: Overcast sky, a few very light snow showers with only a trace of new snow at 1pm, NW winds were light down valley with stronger moderate gusts.
Snowpack: Quick couple hour tour. HS in the 90-110cm range. surface snow was a mix of wind board, but mostly faceted or decomposed surface snow. Ski pen in the 15-20cm range. Persistent slab structure is that but the slab the slab had broken down enough that it is no longer reactive.

Avalanches:
Weather: S-1 snowfall. Moderate northwest winds and light snow transport. Overcast skies.
Snowpack:<1″ of new snow, fell on textured crusts on southerlies, windboard/wind rippled on upper elevation shaded aspects, and near surface facets below treeline on shaded aspects.  South and southwest facing aspects feel bomber right now, with refrozen wet grains deep into the snowpack; supportive to boot pen at all elevations.  SE aspects above treeline had semi-supportive crusts, 3″ thick or so.  Below treeline, the persistent slab structure on shaded aspects feels like it is faceting away and the weak layer/slab interface looks more homogenous than last week’s pits on similar aspects/HS.  Dug one pit on an ENE aspect of Snodgrass.   I got non-propagating results (ECTN, hard) on both the Jan 29 and Jan 14 facet layers, 40 and 60 cm deep approximately.   No signs of instability all day.  Some above treeline cornices are monstrous right now.

Avalanches: Two wet slides below treeline on either side of choke of spoon. Failed earlier in week. Snow in this area was wet to ground.
Weather: Warm temps with thin clouds. Consistent winds with strong gusting near and above treeline.
Snowpack: Below treeline on southerly aspects surface had crusts ranging from 5 to 12 cms. Below crusts, on most terrain over 20*, snowpack was wet to the ground.
Above treeline the snowpack had surface crust around 5 to 10 cms. Water had generally only made it 30 cms below surface. Snowpack was still mostly dry above treeline. In steep SE cross loaded start zone the HS was 180cms. Stability tests at this site produced no results, but there was clear large weak grains 30 cms thick at bottom. They were weak enough to be concerning. It would be difficult to impact this layer but would create a destructive slide. Terrain in same feature that was not loaded had HS of 100cms without concerning structure.

Avalanches:
Weather: Thin few to scattered clouds increased to thick overcast by late p.m. Strong to extreme gusts at ridgetop out of the NW, with light transport at times. Warm temps.
Snowpack: Strong winds were keeping surfaces mostly frozen at upper elevations, today. Above treeline on a 40* SE aspect, there was 2-3″ of refreezing melt-freeze crust, semi-supportive on skis, with dry snow below. On a 30* SE aspect below treeline, there was 3″ of very wet snow at the surface with moist snow down to the Jan 29th crust, about 15″ deep. On a 35* S aspect below treeline, the snowpack was entirely wet to very wet, about 20-24″ total depth. No signs of instability today.

Avalanches: Multiple old wet loose avalanches on Purples south face. One that seemed to trigger small slab R1 D1 but underneath a rock outcrop.
Weather: Clear, warm morning, light local winds from SW.
Snowpack: Did a fair amount of probing on a ~12,300 ft contour line on E-NE-N facing slopes HS between 270cm and probe eating. Jan. 29 interface seemed to be down 60-90cm depending on place. Dug a pit on N facing slope at 12,300 near Jenga, HS 355cm , only tested top 110cm’s, no results with CT and ECT tests. Jan. 29 slab was pencil hard resting on 1F hard slab .5mm facets at 60cm. Snow surface primarily stiff wind board and sastrugi. Textured sas skied best. We did trigger one long shooting crack ~50ft on Purples south face, enroute to S Couli, snow surface was still knife hard, boot pen was 1-3 cm. Not sure how deep crack went into pack, we quickly retreated.

Avalanches: No signs of instability during tour + no recent avalanches observed.
A majority of the steeper slopes and rollovers appeared to slide in the basin during the natural cycle post running on the mid-Jan surface facet layer.
Weather: Clear, warm, light SW winds
Snowpack: HS ~140cm. Ski Pen 10 – 15 cm, Boot Pen ~30 cm.
Surface snow was a mixed bag of sun crusts, wind effected snow and decaying powder/facets. There was also quite a bit of new surface hoar located at lower, tree covered areas around Gunsight Pass road. We did not observe this new layer as we moved higher.
Dug very briefly to see the mid-Jan surface facet layer + observe any SH that survived and was buried. Upper ~50 cm was F to 4F+ of what appeared to be rounding facets from our recent storm. This sat over a stout 1F slab. The mid Jan surface facets separated the two layers. Did not conduct stability tests but the SF layer appeared small + showed smaller grains that I remember from prior pits. There were no SH layers in the area I dug.

Avalanches:
Weather: Mostly Clear, a few high thin cirrus clouds. Calm winds at ridgeline. Hot enough to lay down and take a nap.
Snowpack: Near and above treeline snow surface conditions are just rocked by previous winds. Lots of wind effected snow, some firm wind board 1-3″ thick and some wind textured curdled cream type snow. Ski pen about 10cm on the lumpy cream type snow.

Dry snow on NE and N facing slopes. Southeast facing slopes only seemed to be moist down 5-10cm. More protected and steeper SE slopes probably had a thicker moist surface.

Avalanches: See photo
Weather:
Snowpack:

baldy