Name: Irwin Snow Cat Operation
Location: Irwin
Date of Observation: 12/14/2014

South: New snow not slabbed up and bonding well to Dec 13 crust.  A few small sluffs from steeper entrances running within the top of the new snow and not entraining the snow on the crust.  Where new snow is on top of old facets (in the shade) not as good bonding seen with a few quick hand shears.

West: 13:30 – Starting to slab up a little bit, a few cracks only going 5-8’ in front of skis and only 15cm down. No significant signs of instability or avalanches.

Name: Avalanche level 1 class
Location: Wolverine Glade
Elevation: 9,000-10,700
Aspect: NE

Weather: Mostly cloudy with some flurries (S-1) through the day. Light to moderate WNW winds were strong enough to drift the new snow. Cold temps.

Snowpack: 2″ of new snow and still not a slab problem to be found at these elevations. The snowpack is completely rotten and in poor shape. Small loose snow avalanches were the only problem on high 30 degree terrain.

Name: Zach Guy
Title: Schuykill Ridge
Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 12/14/2014
Aspect: North East, East
Elevation: NTL/BTL 11,400 to 9,200 ft.

Avalanches: Several human triggered and one natural loose avalanche that gouged into old snow and ran up to 1,200 vertical feet. Debris piles 3-5′ deep. (L-AS/N-R1-D1/1.5-O). Also skier triggered several soft slabs below ridgelines that failed on the Dec 13th NSF, and ran far, gouging into older snow. Most of these were 30-40 feet wide, but one was almost 200 feet wide, and ran about 1,000 vertical. (SS-ASc-R1-D1/1.5-I)

Weather: Moderate W/NW winds with strong gusts. Periods of moderate snow transport. Mostly cloudy with intermittent flurries (S-1) through the day. Cold temps.

Snowpack: Toured in the Western part of Schuykill Ridge, near Pittsburg. 2″ of storm snow evenly distributed across the terrain, over the Dec 13th near surface facet layer. Not enough for slab formation, except for below ridgelines and a few wind affected features, where winds had drifted the new snow into 3-6″ of a more cohesive slab. Anywhere that a slab had formed, it was very touchy underfoot.

Uploads:

Name: Zach Guy
Title: Peeler Basin and Oh-Be-Joyful Basin
Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 12/13/2014
Aspect: North, North East, South
Elevation: 9,700′ to 12,200′

Avalanches: Shallow facet sluffing on anything northerly facing. Nothing impressive, except for the one guy in our group who crashed in front of his sluff and got pummeled.

Weather: Clear skies all morning. Clouds began developing around 2 p.m. Warm temps, moderate SW winds. No precip.

Snowpack: More of the same. South aspects near treeline had wet grains (facets and meltforms) to the ground, HS around 30-40cm. North and northeast facing slopes above treeline held a continuous layer of ~3″ of near surface facets (fist hardness), sitting over a variable distribution of old, stiff snow or weak, unsupportive snow. Descending in elevation, the snowpack transitioned to mostly all facets and unsupportive on skis. See video

Name: Level 1 Avalanche Class
Date of Observation: 12/13/2014
Aspect: North East, East, Southwest
Elevation: BTL

Weather: Few clouds midday becoming overcast in the afternoon. Calm winds and warm temps. Gusty winds and and S-1 grapple started around sunset.

Snowpack: We were hunting slabs in the area and the slabs where all faceted out. One group did find a 4f-1f midpack on an isolated wind roll. Otherwise on NE/E aspects the HS was about 40cm on average and all facets. In the bottom 2/3 of the snowpack the 1-4mm facets have gained some strength and are 4f- in hardness. SW aspects consisted of a thick crust over F hard facets. On all aspects toured SH was living large unless it was on steep enough southern aspects to be melted by the sun.

Name: TNA
Title: confectionery
Date of Observation: 12/13/2014
Aspect: North, North East
Elevation: BTL

Avalanches: None seen

Weather: Warm, sunny, no wind

Snowpack: Skied 800 vertical feet of factus awesomnus in 2.5 bowl Snodgrass. You ain’t livin’ until you’re skiing facets. Although, about midway down there was some sort of 4 inch thick supportable layer out in the open shots about four inches down in the pack. Windboard?