Date of Observation: 12/05/2022
Name: Zach Guy and Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Traveled on west facing terrain near and below treeline near Lake Irwin and east facing terran below treeline above Elk Creek.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: On west facing terrain at Irwin: We remotely triggered a small persistent slab from about 20 feet away (See video). The soft slab was up to 16″ thick, and failed on the topmost facet layer in stack of several facet/crust layers that were buried a week ago. The other steep slopes that we traveled near had all avalanched previously. Same for east facing terrain in Elk Creek: all of the paths that we approached slid naturally, probably during the Nov 29 storm.
Weather: Overcast, light snow and graupel, moderate ridgeline winds with periods of light transport. Mild temps.
Snowpack: Frequent collapsing and shooting cracks while breaking trail on west-facing terrain in the 20* to 30* range. The collapses are occurring on thin and weak facet crust sandwiches. Collapses were somewhat less common on east-facing terrain, perhaps because the slabs are thicker, but plenty of collapses nonetheless. There was an impressive amount of graupel in the top 10 cm of the snowpack. The slab continues to get stiffer and more supportive to skis, making for fun and fast skiing on low angle terrain. After clearly identifying that the terrain we were scouting had slid earlier in the week, we felt comfortable riding on those steeper pitches.

Date of Observation: 12/05/2022
Name: Mark Robbins

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Pittsburgh rollers main skinner and rollers

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Didn’t see as previously reported but maybe I missed it, guessing from 11/29 or 12/2 storm, natural or triggered from below on skinner?
Weather: Spitting Graupel snow for the first lap and windy, then clearing and calming
Snowpack: 2 very small settlements, guessing lots had already collapsed from weekend tourers. A couple inches of new Graupel snow from overnight

Date of Observation: 12/05/2022
Name: billy barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic townsite

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: A little bit of sun yesterday (hooray) as it stayed dry, then cloudy and very warm overnight with light but very dense snow, mostly graupel, with 2″ new and water 0.22″. Wind light to none. There is 19″ of snow on the ground matching this winter’s deepest. Currently a very light snowfall with today’s high 33F (yesterday was 36) and the current 28 after a low of 27. Is it April? –The graupel is making for another weak layer in the snowpack as the current pack continues to collapse.

Date of Observation: 12/04/2022

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Snodgrass viewed from Gothic Road

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Recent small slide just before Tuttle Cabin. See photo.

Date of Observation: 12/04/2022
Name: Dan Hohl

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Toured up WA Gulch to Second Bowl. Multiple collapses in flats below Coney’s and on the uptrack.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: One natural D1 avalanche in Cat’s Hat Glades. Bed surface did not appear filled in, likely occurred between in the last 24 hours.
Weather: Overcast skies, warm temps, light winds SW.
Snowpack: Average depth 75-80cm. Fist trending to 1F slab on top of large Facet layer located 45-55cm below the surface. Great riding conditions on lower angle terrain.

Date of Observation: 12/04/2022

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: 9600ft-10800, on SE-ENE aspects. Stayed on slopes in mid 20°s to low 30°s steepness in very isolated spots with no overhead danger.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: Despite incredible whumpfing all day long, many of which rippled through snow hundreds of feet away from us, we saw no avalanches that haven’t already been reported here. We did trigger shooting cracks extending as much as 50 ft long.
Weather: Intermittently overcast, light wind at ~11k ridgeline, eventually light snow in late afternoon. Temps were high 20s-low 30s
Snowpack: Performed two ECT tests at sites at BTL and NTL elevations, roughly ENE facing. Season snow totals in both locations were near 1 meter. Storm slab from the past few days was about 45 cm and quickly transitioned from Fist hardness in the top 5 cm to 4F, to 1F in the bottom ~15 cm of this new snow. Below were a few decomposing sun crusts that ranged from 1F- to almost not present (Fist hard) at our upper pit. Below those were 2-3 mm sized facets all the way to the ground; this layer was ~30 cm in depth, and Fist hard.

Lower Pit Results: ECTP 3, Q1/Sudden Collapse @ 23 cm (within basal facets); after more loading, we got: ECTN 14, Q1 @ 35 cm (storm snow-old snow interface)

Upper Pit Results: We prepped and saw that the extensive whumpfing had already collapsed the same layers we saw shear in our lower pit, which unsurprisingly gave us a false stable result of ECT X, but still saw the same problematic structure.

Beyond attempting to nerd out, the snowpack made for perfectly supportive hippy wiggles.

Date of Observation: 12/04/2022
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Pavement avalanche obs.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A few natural avalanches from east and northeast aspects of Whetstone and Gothic Mountain. The Gothic avalanche clearly is big enough to bury a person(D2) and a couple on Whetstone looked to be large(D2) as well, but visibility was poor so made my best estimates on size.
Weather: Mostly cloudy conditions in the early afternoon when I made the observation.
Snowpack:

Date of Observation: 12/04/2022

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Slate TH up the lower switchbacks of Gunsight Road and back.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: Mostly cloudy, no wind, no precip
Snowpack: Really noisy. Continuous rumbling collapses and shaking trees as we skied up the road. Very little cracking observed. Jumped at the top of several steep banksides with no results. HS at 9400’ 60 cm. Ski pen 5 cm, boot pen 60 cm, Labrador pen to the belly. The slab deposited this week was very supportive to skis, not so much for the pooch. An early retreat was called.

Date of Observation: 12/04/2022

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Marble Point

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Evidence of previous Na cycle to size 3 (>72hrs old)
Weather: OVC, Warm temperatures 45F/7C at the parking area (8800ft) at 1030am
Snowpack: Above 10,000ft the upper snowpack was well settled and fast (4F resistance) with a 10cm skipen due to warm temps and previous wind. Below 10k the sfc is moist with a couple wet loose avalanches (<size 1) and large pinwheels on all aspects. 90cm of recent hst (4F) overlies an ugly mess of facets. Many whumphs in untracked areas with localized cracking.
TP @ 10,800ft, E Aspect, HS 130cm, CTM (SP) x2 dwn 90cm on the notable FC interface.

Date of Observation: 12/04/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Baxter Basin and Cascade Mtn, Traveled on various aspects up to 11700′

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Numerous natural D1.5 to D2 slabs from the last storm, most on North to East N/ATL, with a couple that rounded to Southeast and South-Southeast aspects. Light was flat so it was hard to make out exact sizes and crown connectivity. See photos. Tried getting some smaller terrain features to release without any luck.
Weather: Clouds increased mid-morning. Light winds with light transport at times. Mild temps.
Snowpack: Frequent collapses, some localized, some rumbling across entire terrain features. Slabs are generally 2 feet thick and average 4F hard over our well-advertised weak layers. We targeted a pit on a due south slope that held old snow prior to the recent storms. The crust capping the large-grained facets is about 6 cm thick, and tests did not propagate.