Our first snowpack summary of the year is here. A dryspell in late November caused the snowpack to become very weak, setting us up for dangerous conditions once the storm track returned.

Our first snowpack summary of the year is here. A dryspell in late November caused the snowpack to become very weak, setting us up for dangerous conditions once the storm track returned.

Date of Observation: 12/02/2022
Name: Evan Ross
Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Kebler Area Tour. Northerly, 10,000ft to 11,500ft
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Skier triggered a couple of small slides. The first was while descending small, but steep terrain. The 2nd was while bouncing for a collapse, resulting in a remotely triggered avalanche from about 25 feet away.
Weather: Strong winds and blowing snow most of the day. Hard to gauge how much it was snowing vs blowing.
Snowpack: HST was about 20cm by 1 pm at 10,500ft. A distinct layer of graupel near the base of the storm and plenty of graupel mixed in with other perception particles within the storm now. Thick and supportive new snow. Made the low angles ski really well. Total HS in the area is around 100 to 120cm.
Lots of collapses and shooting cracks in the snowpack, as has been normal lately. Each time I looked, those cracks were extending down to the weak sandbox near the base of the snowpack.
Photos:Date of Observation: 12/02/2022
Name: Zach Guy
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Mt. Crested Butte, gladed low angle skiing on northerly aspects.
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Ski triggered a couple of 12″ soft slabs breaking on our weak facet layer on small rollovers in the trees. Saw results from mitigation teams on Horseshoe that failed on the storm interface and old facet layers, D1 in size.
Weather: Moderate snowfall rates and strong winds with periods of intense wind transport.
Date of Observation: 12/02/2022
Name: Zach Kinler
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: East ditch trail above 4th and Red Lady
Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: Cloudy with nnow squalls. Moderate West wind in open areas.
Snowpack: On an afternoon dog walk, I was able to collapse just about every small slope I stepped on producing shooting cracks. These features were not big enough to run but larger ones certainly would have. Westerly winds were moving snow in open areas below treeline. 6-7″ of new snow from this storm, which was fairly dense.
Location:
Location Specific:
Start Zone Elevation:
Aspect:
Trigger:
Trigger modifier:
Type:
Failure Plane:
Relative Size:
Destructive Size:
Avg. crown height (inches):
Avg. width (feet):
Avg. vertical run (feet):
# of people caught:
# of partial burials:
# of full burials:
Additional comments:
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Name: Billy Barr
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic Townsite
Weather: Cloudy overnight with snow starting before 3 a.m. light to moderate but very dense with 3″ new and water 0.31″ with the snowpack at 16″. Gusting wind at times. Currently obscured with light snow. High temperatures the past 24 hours was 36F, low 24 and the current 25. A wet, heavy snow to start out.
Date of Observation: 12/01/2022
Name: Dan Hohl
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Second Bowl uptrack, Coney’s.
Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather:
Snowpack: Collapse and shooting cracks observed on East facing slope Below Tree Line. Hasty pit showed a snow depth of 55cm with a failure interface 40cm below the surface, consisting of a crust/facet layer 2-3cm thick on top of depth hoar 2-3mm in size. The slab on top of this interface was 4F hardness.
Date of Observation: 12/01/2022
Name: Billy Barr
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: viewed from Gothic townsite
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: two small avalanches on northeast slopes of snodgrass than ran late Wednesday or overnight.
Weather:
Snowpack:
Date of Observation: 12/01/2022
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: small hills near Snodgrass trailhead
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: some real small avalanches from the storm
Weather: sunny skies, snow blowing off summits
Snowpack: snow depth about 2 feet on shaded terrain. sporadic surface hoar moderate size. a few small collapses. many slopes were covered in cracks but didn’t avalanche.
Date of Observation: 12/01/2022
Name: Zach Kinler
Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Slate River TH to bottom of Purple Palace
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Continued documentation of the widespread avalanche cycle on East through North aspects.
Weather:
Snowpack:
Date of Observation: 11/30/2022
Name: Rob Strickland
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Standard Red Lady and Standard Glady
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: saw many on the suspect Northern half of the compass (many reported already) plus the obvious cornice ridge collapse on an easterly ridge on skinner (also reported earlier).
A note I would add is that the lowest elevation snow was warming and wet this afternoon. even felt some crust forming in the shade… watching the snow from the trees drip onto the snow below. Crazy to think we started the day so cold and then to see melting on the snow the same day.
The snowpack was LOUD and collapses everywhere. Shooting cracks on most start zones (naturals) which I couldn’t get to move.
Obvious snow consolidation is evident around trees and bushes.
Very thin and somewhat supportive overall. I like what KH said, tips up, bums down!
Weather: sunny warming to 30*s (a guess)
Snowpack: Loud and shallow. ATL scoured and drifted. BTL getting deeper 500+ feet above Kebler (but still razor-thin in most places).
Are you sure we got 10″ – 17″ haha