Blown

Date of Observation: 12/15/2021
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gunsight Pass. Northerly facing slopes between 9,000ft and 10,400.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: Felt like I was hanging out at an airport or something with jet engines running all day. The wind was generally light where I spent most of my day, but as soon as you get out of any cover it was full-on, strong down-valley winds. Lots of snow transport and wind erosion.
Snowpack: Around 10,000ft the HS averaged 70cm in the flats. Primary traveled on northerly facing slopes where it was easy to identify the layer of weak facets on the ground. Unforutnily they are just an arms reach way, or the layer is easy to identify with a ski pole. The mid-pack slab was around 4f hard over F hard facets The recent storm had deposited 3 to 4″ of new snow and the ski pen averaged around 25cm. In several places, there was small surface hoar just under the new snow, that somehow survived the early wind.

The persistent slab avalanche problem felt stubborn to trigger and lacked obvious signs of instability, without some extra effort. Usually, an extra couple of hard jumps could initiate a collapse where the snowpack had been undisturbed. The few bigger and steeper slopes I got close too, turned out to have already avalanched during last week’s cycle and had not yet accumulated enough new snow to become a problem again. From a distance, I wasn’t able to identify which slopes had or hadn’t previously avalanched.