Small Slide in Red Lady Bowl

CB Avalanche Center January 19, 20152014-15 Observations

LOCATION: Crested Butte Area
DATE OF OBSERVATION: 01/13/2015
NAME: Kyle Smith

SUBJECT: Small Slide in Red Lady Bowl
ASPECT: South
ELEVATION: 11,000

AVALANCHES: This is probably common knowledge already since I noticed it a few days ago. Skinning up red lady bowl/glades ridge, I observed a small slide on the other side of the bowl (S,SW) around 11,000ft. It looks like there was some skier activity over there, so I imagine it was triggered from a ski cut. Judging from a distance, the slide had about a 60 yard run. Since then, I have not observed any other action on the same aspect. Cheers. Be safe out there.

WEATHER: Blue Bird

UPLOADS:

Red-Lady-Slide

Mountain Weather January 19, 2015

CB Avalanche Center January 19, 2015Weather

Date: 01/19/2015

Colorado seems to be getting the stiff arm in this week’s weather pattern. The jet stream is helping to keep the storm track north of Colorado and is favoring the Northwest, ID and WY. So we’re currently looking to have a mostly dry week ahead. Us forecasters will be working hard to think of witty comments to keep everyone entertained this week. This afternoon and evening could be the exception to the outlook. A weather system will clip Northern Colorado during this time and we may see some light snowfall.

Today

High Temperature: 32
Wind Speed: 5-15
Wind Direction: W, NW
Sky Cover: Partly Cloudy
Snow: 0

Tonight

Low Temperature: 15
Wind Speed: 5-15
Wind Direction: NW
Sky Cover: Mostly Cloudy
Snow: 0-2

Tomorrow

High Temperature: 26
Wind Speed: 0-15
Wind Direction: W
Sky Cover: Decreasing clouds
Snow: 0-1

Gothic Road

CBAC January 19, 20152014-15 Observations

Name: Donny
DATE: 15-01-18
LOCATION: Above and below the road to Gothic

ELEVATION: 9150’ to 9850’
ASPECT: NE
WEATHER: Clear, calm and warm (mid-20s)

SNOWPACK/AVALANCHE OBS: I am fascinated by this snowpack at the moment. Clearly it is faceting quickly. Average HS was 100cm and ski pen while skinning was anywhere from 15cm to 50cm+. Ski pen while descending was more like 20cm through dry, fast facets. We had significant signs of instability on all three runs. Whumpfing and collapsing on everything from the flats to 35º slopes. I made a big, forceful turn on a convex rollover and we got a big whumpf, but nothing moved. Is the slab faceting and loosing cohesion, but the buried surface hoar still reacts? After guiding at tree line and below tree line for eight out of the past ten days, I have seen the signs of instability increase each day. Yet I feel like it would be really difficult to trigger a slide. (This says nothing of larger, alpine features. I have no observations.)

Snodgrass

CB Avalanche Center January 19, 20152014-15 Observations

NAME: JSJ
DATE: 15-01-18
LOCATION: Snodgrass

ELEVATION: 9400′ to 10,600′
ASPECT: NE
WEATHER: Clear and warm with steady light to moderate NNW winds.

SNOWPACK/AVALANCHE OBS: Surface faceting continuing on shaded aspects and some thin wind crusts found below treeline on open slopes crossloading terrain features North to South. Persistent slab seems to be losing cohesion. Travel on open slopes into the high 30’s slope angle produced one small collapse on a steep roll, but nothing moved and no other signs of instability. Ski pen deepening throughout the week it seems. Poor structure in this zone but low hazard it seems due to any slab cohesion.

Cement Creek

CB Avalanche Center January 19, 20152014-15 Observations

LOCATION: Cement Creek Area
DATE OF OBSERVATION: 01/18/2015
NAME: ADB

ASPECT: North, South
ELEVATION: BTL/NTL

AVALANCHES: Yesterday oberseved N-SS-D0.5 on west facing road cut on 135 by Roaring Judy. Went to ground. Unsure if it occured on 1/17 or 1/16.

WEATHER: Mostly sunny. Warm. No wind!!

SNOWPACK: Hand tests: southern aspects-upper 1 5 to 20 cm-1 cm of yesterday’s snow on top of sun crust of 5cm. Below that suncrust are facets and the cycle repeats itself with a layer cake of sun crusts and facets.

north aspects-15 to 20 cm of F snow.

Warm temperatures on open part of skin track resulted in clumping snow on skins in January!!

UPLOADS:

Coney’s

CB Avalanche Center January 19, 20152014-15 Observations

LOCATION: Crested Butte Area
DATE OF OBSERVATION: 01/18/2015
NAME: Reggie

SUBJECT: Coney’s
ASPECT: North, North East
ELEVATION: 10,900

AVALANCHES: Snowboarder triggered, small point release. R2D1-2 From summit zone between 1st and 2nd bowl. ~37 degrees. Just top layer, ran from summit area to where slope mellows.

WEATHER: Light Northwest/North winds, clear, moderate to warm temps

SNOWPACK: Noticed ~3″ Wind Slab at ridgeline

UPLOADS:

Kebler Pass Area – Windslabs and wet loose

CB Avalanche Center January 19, 20152014-15 Observations

LOCATION: Kebler Pass Area
DATE OF OBSERVATION: 01/18/2015
NAME: Zach Guy

SUBJECT: Kebler Pass Area – Windslabs and wet loose
ASPECT: North East, East, South East, South
ELEVATION: 11,000 – 13,000 ft

AVALANCHES: Two fresh windslabs off of SE face of Ruby, and 2 fresh debris piles below the east face of Owen (presumably also windslabs, but didn’t see the start zones), all relatively small, D1 to D1.5. The windslabs on Ruby were roughly 100 feet wide and 8″ to 12″ thick. SS-N-R1-D1.5-U. Saw one snowmobile triggered windslab on a small, windloaded terrain feature, E aspect ATL, up 10″ thick.. SS-AM-R1-D1-I, We skier triggered a wet loose avalanche on a south aspect that picked up a fair amount of snow by the bottom, running on the Jan 11th crust. . WL-AS-R1-D1.5-I
See photos.

WEATHER: Moderate westerly winds. Few clouds. Warm.

SNOWPACK: Above treeline on south aspects, the snow surface is melt-freeze crust. The Jan 11 meltfreeze crust is thick and supportive, with about 4-6″ of dry to moist new snow above it and a ~1″ thick MFcrust at the surface. East and Northeast aspects held dry snow, with the surface mostly wind crusts, and a few patches of softer, rippled faceted snow. Pockets of denser, thicker, windloaded snow.

UPLOADS:

DSCF5517-001

DSCF5516-001

DSCF5510-001

Mountain Weather January 18, 2015

CB Avalanche Center January 18, 2015Weather

Date: 01/18/2015

Unfortunately not a lot to be exited about in today’s weather. The jet stream is to our north and helping to keep us in a high pressure ridge. We’ll see some high thin clouds today and otherwise similar dry weather. If everyone in town does the snow dance we may see a sprinkling of orographic snow in our western mountains on Monday. Midweek forecast models are yet to come into agreement about a potential low pressure trough that could help change our current dry weather pattern.

Today

High Temperature: 31
Wind Speed: 10-20
Wind Direction: W
Sky Cover: Mostly Cloudy
Snow: 0

Tonight

Low Temperature: 20
Wind Speed: 10-20
Wind Direction: E, SW, W
Sky Cover: Mostly Cloudy
Snow: 0-2

Tomorrow

High Temperature: 29
Wind Speed: 15-25
Wind Direction: W
Sky Cover: Overcast
Snow: 0-3

Gothic Mtn

CB Avalanche Center January 18, 20152014-15 Observations

LOCATION: Crested Butte Area
DATE OF OBSERVATION: 01/17/2015
NAME: Zach Guy

SUBJECT: Gothic Mtn
ASPECT: South, South West
ELEVATION: 9,500-12,200 ft

AVALANCHES: One natural soft slab involving the recent storm snow on an East aspect ATL on Schuykill Peak that failed sometime in the past 5 days, SS-N-R2-D1.5-I Looked to be about a foot deep and 100-200 feet wide. Not much else for recent activity except some smaller sluffs and a small windslab on crossloaded SW above treeline.

WEATHER: Light west winds, clear skies, mild temps. Some plumes observed off of Ruby Range.

SNOWPACK: No new snow. In flat terrain, snowpack was supportive about 70% of the time, and trapdoor the rest. One collapse noted. As slopes steepened, there was little concern for persistent slab. Mostly meltforms throughout the snowpack and some moist facets below the several supportive crusts near the surface. Shallow snow depths between 20 and 60 cm. No signs of instability on slopes up to 40 degrees. The crust sandwhich at the surface (Very thick Jan 11 crust/1-3″ of soft snow/ thin surface crust) could be a big concern with future storms as that soft layer below today’s thin surface crust facets out.

Washington Gultch

CBAC January 18, 20152014-15 Observations

Names: Scott, Krista, Will
DATE:1/17/15
LOCATION: Washington Gulch

ASPECT: NE/E
ELEVATION: 9,300- 9,700
WEATHER: Clear and calm

SNOWPACK/AVALANCHE OBS: Traveled primarily in low angle terrain in valley bottom. Noticed large collapses, and cracks traveling upwards of 100ft, primarily in areas that were more north facing and wind affected. Although a ECT on E aspect showed no result, and in this particular spot the midpack seemed to be interfacing well with the December 13th layer. Thin crust found on more southerly and steeper aspects. Intact buried surface hoar found near the surface on all aspects. On northern aspects the midpack had deteriorated to points where ski penetration was over 75% of the snowpack. Small natural avalanche seen on S, SE aspect below the Gothic Spoon.

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