Name: Zach Guy
Title: Natural slides
Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 01/06/2015
Aspect: East, South East, South, South West, West
Elevation: Near and above treeline

Avalanches: 2 Natural windslabs in the past couple days, one off of the east face of Owen, one off of a Northeast couloir on Scarp’s Ridge, ATL slopes. Both looked to be about a foot deep, relatively small, less than 40 feet wide. (SS-N-R1-D1-I).  Over a dozen wet loose avalanches on south aspects near treeline in Peeler and Robinson Basin, D1 to D1.5 in size.  Some of these showed some horizontal propagation as they ran.  WL-N-R1-D1/1.5-S.   One wet loose triggered a larger slab, estimated about 2 feet deep on the Dec 13th crust.  SS-NL-R2-D2-O.

Weather: Light westerly winds. WARM. High of 40F at 10,000 ft. Few clouds.

Snowpack: New surface hoar layer, preserved on low angle slopes that didn’t get cooked by the sun. Snowpack became moist with lots of rollerballs on SE to S to W aspects on near treeline slopes, and S aspects above treeline.

Uploads:

Title: Avalanches on Snodgrass
Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/06/2015
Aspect: South East
Elevation: ~11,000 ft

Avalanches: 2 minor slides on the Southeast Aspect (California Bowl) of Snodgrass. Nobody was hurt.

Weather: Warm and sunny

Snowpack: Heavy and wet

Name: Travis Colbert
Title: Lower Wolverine Basin
Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/06/2015
Aspect: North West
Elevation: 10,600

Avalanches:

Weather: Warm (30 degrees), low cloud layer in the Slate River valley, clear blue skies above. Calm winds.

Snowpack: Test pit on a 38 degree rocky rollover. 110 cm total snow depth. 52 cm of fist to four finger soft snow on top of “December 13th interface” of 1-2 mm facets. 20-30 cm of two and three finger hardness below December 13th interface sitting on 10 cm of 2-3 mm facets at the ground. Conducted several shovel compression test with widely mixed results from CT7 with a sudden collapse on the December 13th interface to CT30 that shovel sheared at the ground. One of the columns failed when cutting on the December 13th interface. Rock outcroppings in the vicinity of the test pit seemed to be contributing to the widely varied results. Bottom line, while much of the snowpack might be “MODERATE”, there seems to be plenty of sensitive pockets that can be easily triggered by the weight of a skier.

Uploads:

Name: Evan Ross
Date: 1/16/15
Location: Snodgrass Road
Aspect: NE

Weather: Low clouds and overcast this morning. Burning off by 11am to few clouds. Much warmer then that past week.

Snowpack/Avalanche Obs: Passing by NE side of snodgrass on the Gothic road.  Certainly a widespread Persistent Slab cycle on the mid and upper slopes of Snodgrass. Classic avalanche terrain generally over 34 degrees was a main characteristic. Lots of wind effect in the east river valley. Looked like more wind stripping then wind loading, but obviously there were some cross loaded pockets too. Lots of loosing snow avalanching on sunny slopes but all d1-d1.5.

Guides(s): Jeff
Date: 20150104
Level One Avy Course, Tour Day
Location: East River Valley/Gothic
Elevation: 9400′ – 10,000
Aspect: SW-N-ENE

Weather: Variable/Overcast, flat light, dry most of the day, a few flurries. Winds light to strong, mostly N channeled down valley.

Snowpack/Avalanche Obs: Approximately 12 recent avalanches along Snodgrass seen from the Gothic road.  Looked like skier triggered within the PWL.  ~5 D1.5’s (small but going into gulley terrain traps where the debris piled up deeply) ~7 X D2’s.  At the far end of Gothic Mtn (across the bridge) we remotely triggered a D1.5 from ~50m away on a 25* slope.  the whole slope cracked & the pocket went within the PWL of very large facets.  looked like 33-35* slope angle from 50m.

Overall, snowpack is shallow & week 50-100cm.

We got collapses & shooting cracks on a SW (240*) slope BTL @15* (guessing the crust wasn’t strong enough in a semi shaded low < slope).

Ditto on W, E, ENE  (Pit collapsed before we dug it on the approach!)

Probably 10 collapses in all spanning large distances.

ENE pit: The structure is >5mm Facets w/ soft (often 4F slab over the top).

WSW pit: (10 m away from above pit) 25* slope, knife hard 6cm crust over facets with perc. columns in the facets showed no propagation and only Q2/Q3 failures within the top layers resting on crust.

Guide(s): JSJ
Date: 20150105
Activity: BC Ski
Location: Snodgrass
Elevation:9400′ – 10,000
Aspect: E/SE

Weather: Broken to scattered clouds. 3cm new snow. Moderate and sustained winds from West and North (down valley funnel) most of day.

Snowpack/Avalanche Obs: Same as previous post from yesterday in same zone. Got a few collapses and shooting cracks on 25 degree slopes on an East aspect. Ski pen at times was full depth. Downvalley N winds were transporting new low density snow and re-filling the skin track between laps.

Recent Observations: (Surface, structure, cracking, collapsing, PWLs, Ski Pen)

Wind stripped snow in higher terrain exposing old tracks on west terrain even in mid to lower westwall. Looked like straight west Winds. Small isolated wind slabs up to 1F hardness. Snow remained dry, no solar radiation.

East: Paperboy Route w/ ski cuts, no explosives. Fresh Wind slabs developed very touchy with ski cut triggering wind slab in Swill & Bender. Swill SS-ASc-R1-D1-I. 100’ wide 10-20” deep, ran 500’ through choke. Candy’s & Sonic also triggered but smaller 6” deep, ran short of Choke. Wind slab less developed past pre-evac.

South: Small 4” windslabs in Sunny Shoulder barely running. Cocktail Bowl Skiing very well!

West: Sunset L&R a little wind effected but good, small windslab from a ski cut on round two. 8-12” deep 30’ wide, ran 40’.

Upper Upper: Isolated windslabs in lower UUWW. Not UUWW proper. Very shallow windslabs 1F pulling out and stubbornly running short distances from airblasts. Significant scouring, probably lost 1-3f feet of snow depth from terrain. Probably one reason for no results, decreasing load!

Name: Zach Guy/Evan Ross
Title: Schuykill Ridge
Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 01/05/2015
Aspect: North East
Elevation: 9,100-11,300

Weather: Broken skies becoming scattered to few  in the late afternoon. Moderate to strong W/SW winds at ridgelines blowing snow. In valley bottoms light to moderate winds were also drifting snow.

Snowpack: Toured in the Schuykill area observing the persistent slab structure through different elevation bands:

Below 9,600ft
Persistent slab structure was very weak with a faceting slab. A few collapses but no shooting cracks. ECT results were non-propagating slab fractures (ECTN, moderate to hard). Areas with previously wind hardened snow were most suspect.

9,600ft to 10,000ft
The slab gained enough strength or cohesion (F+ to 4F, 60 cm thick) to produce a shooting crack on a 33 degree slope after a collapse.

10,000-11,300
Persistent Slabs became quite with no collapsing. HS averaged 100-140cm, slabs about 70+ cm thick. The 12/13 interface was obvious in the snowpit wall and still very weak facets, but ECT tests did not produce any results (ECTX), Compression tests produced sudden collapse results on the 12/13 facets.

Avalanches: Shallow windslabs were touchy at ridgeline on Northeast aspects near treeline. Two skier triggered windslabs generally 2-4″ deep but up to 6″ in places. 30-40ft wide and one ran 500 vertical feet but was still a D1. We watched a natural avalanche mid day on  a NE aspect near treeline. Appeared to be a shallow windslab that then stepped down to a 100 ft wide persistent slab, maybe a foot or two deep, but we observed this from valley bottom.  The whole mess ran 1,000 vertical feet and was large enough to bury a person.  SS-N-R1-D1.5-O.  That slope had slid previously on the Dec 13th facets in mid-December.   Lots of evidence of widespread avalanches during the meat of the avalanche cycle back in late December.