Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 01/11/2015

Weather: Snowfall exceeded the forecast, picking up 15cm (6″) by the end of the day, yahoo! West winds drifted the new snow as it fell.

Snowpack: 2 significant collapses on West aspects, both failing on the Dec 13 faceted interface. One slightly South of west, a second slightly North of west. On the second one, there was no old sun crust under the new snow and the slab was 4F to F+ hard, but even with the slab as not stiff as it was, it was still able to propagate ~70′ across a small 36 degree roll (see photo). Not that the Jan 11th snow changed the load on the Dec 13th layer to a great extent yet, but it’s a good reminder that as the snow loads grow, so will the distribution of the persistent slab problem, to include the weaker/shallower areas on the sunny side of the compass.

Name: Zach Guy
Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 01/11/2015
Aspect: South, North West
Elevation: 11,000 to 13,000 ft.

Avalanches: Touchy windslabs in crossloaded gullies, 4-8″ thick, a few up to 10″ thick. We skier triggered over a dozen soft slabs, running on meltfreeze crusts on southerly aspects and windhardened surfaces on northerly aspects. They weren’t running far or propagating wide distances, but they were increasing in size through the day. SS-ASc-R1-D1-I

Weather: Moderate snowfall, light to moderate westerly winds, some variable directions as we moved through terrain. Overcast.

Snowpack: About 6″ of new snow on the firm interfaces left over from our recent dryspell, up to 10 or 12″ in drifted gullies. New snow is bonding poorly to the Jan 10th interface.

Recent Observations: New Interface is the Jan 11th Interface and the new snow is falling on mostly crusts, Near Surface facets and Surface Hoar. This will be a one to watch especially as slabs build. Jan 3rd interface visible in profile but not reactive to column tests.

East: Evidence of more SW winds with no slab forming yet. 3‐6” of new unconsolidated snow on mostly supportive crust. Descent bonding with minimal sluffing.

West: Sluffing moving medium speeds w/ Oswald going full track not a lot of mass. See attached profile from JB Jungle

File Upload: Snow Profile

Name: Donny
DATE: 15-01-11
LOCATION: Crested Butte Area
ELEVATION: 9000’ to 10,400′
ASPECT: Mostly N and NE

WEATHER: Snowing all day; short periods of S3; HST 15cm; calm to light winds; temps in the upper teens to lower 20s throughout the day.

SNOWPACK/AVALANCHE OBS: No signs of instabilities or avalanches observed.  New snow is light and not adding significant weight to snowpack.  Looked at 12/13 interface in a couple spots and it seemed to be faceting away, although I still got rough hand sheers.

Name: ADB
Location: Cement Creek Area
Date of Observation: 01/11/2015
Elevation: BTL/NTL

Weather: Mostly cloudy and snowing lightly (S-1). Sun poked out a few times. Winds were calm for the most part except one 10 minute episode of light winds, which didn’t transport snow.

Snowpack: Didn’t see the surface hoar observed on 1/10/15. Less than 2.5 cm of new snow on the ground.

Uploads:

Name: Zach Guy
Title: Slate River Valley and Poverty Gulch
Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 01/09/2015
Aspect: North East, East, South East, South, South West
Elevation: up to 12,500 ft.

Avalanches: Same wet loose cycle here from several days ago, mostly N/BTL on southern half, some cleaning out to the ground. One recent skier triggered persistent slab in the lower rollers of eastern part of Schuykill, NE aspect BTL. Triggered sometime in the last 4 days, looked to be 2 feet deep and 150 feet wide. It was on a relatively small terrain feature thus small in size. SS-AS-R2-D1.5-O. Lots of similar naturals in the same area that were quite a bit older. Also saw a handful of old, persistent slab avalanches on Northwest aspects above treeline on the windward side of Ruby Divide.

Weather: Light westerly winds. Clear. Warm.

Snowpack: Observed the current dry-spell interface on ATL slopes. Roughly half of terrain has ripples and scallops from wind affects, the other half is smooth. SE to S to SW has undergone a few days of melt-freeze cycles but preserved the older wind texture, and a fair amount of steep terrain has rollerballs. Meltfreeze crusts were thin to 2″ thick. About 10% of terrain has small surface hoar, generally in sheltered, shaded pockets, sitting on smooth windcrusts. Swaths of soft, rippeled near surface facets exist between firm wind board and wind crusts. Without a map of micro terrain wind affects, its pretty difficult to generalize a pattern for PWL and non-PWL distribution, and will make for challenging slope to slope comparisons if this interface becomes problematic. Looks alot like our late January interface last year.

Uploads:

NAME: Donny
DATE: 15-01-10
ACTIVITY: Ski touring
LOCATION: Crested Butte Area
ELEVATION: 9,200 to 11,600
ASPECT: S-SE-E