LOCATION: Kebler Pass Area
DATE OF OBSERVATION: 01/21/2015


UPLOADS:

AVALANCHES: Fresh persistent slab avalanche off of NE aspect of Scarp Ridge, new in the past 2 days. Looks like it might have been triggered by rockfall. 3 feet at its deepest, most of it was about 1-2 feet, ~20 feet wide at apex, fanned out to about 100 feet wide. Multiple failure planes, looked like the Jan 11 interface on the flanks and ground in the middle. Surprisingly shallow snow depth for this part of the zone; I believe that path also ran during the Solstice Storm. HS-NR-R2-D2-O/G

UPLOADS:

AVALANCHES: Fresh looking natural persistent slab avalanche on an east aspect below treeline. Hard to tell exactly when it ran, but I chatted with a resident who keeps eyes on that slope and she thought it was new today. The slope is a crossloaded, sagebrush slope below Whetstone/Round Mountain. The slab looked about 12″-18″ deep, (most of the season’s snowpack), and was about 100 feet wide. SS-N-R2-D1.5-O

WEATHER:

SNOWPACK:

UPLOADS:

AVALANCHES: Apparently skier triggered by a separate previous party, possibly 1-3 days old. Failure occurred on the Dec. 13th layer on a 35-40 degree North facing slope. (Rough numbers) 90cm total snow depth, 30cm bed surface to ground, 50-60cm crown depth, 9m crown width, ran 30-40m creating a moderately sized debris pile.

WEATHER: Today it was mostly sunny with a light breeze blowing west to east, mid-day temps were around 30 degrees.

SNOWPACK: Shallow snowpack (roughly 90cm total snow depth) full of facets!

UPLOADS:

FullSizeRender-9

AVALANCHES: On east side of Snodgrass, observed older avalanche debris in a terrain trap and a recent N-LS-R1 on SE aspect (slide may have occurred within last 72 hours).

WEATHER: mostly sunny skies with slight breeze with a gradual transition to mostly cloudy skies to breeze. Breeze didn’t have velocity to transport snow.

SNOWPACK: Southeast aspest along skin track had “crunchy sun crust.

East side of Snodgrass: Hand test below ridge revealed sun crust underlain by facets. This cycle repeated itself for a depth of 16 to 20 cm.
At same elevation band as aspens, snow transitioned to stiff wind slabs to Gothic road.

AVALANCHES: New snow ran on a SE facing slope. Skier triggered. Began at about 11,000 feet and ended about 10,000 feet.

WEATHER: Clear

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date: 1/19/2015

Wolverine Basin: No signs of instability ECTX on crown line profile from early January human triggered slide at 10,500ft, NE aspect. ECTX on N facing slope at 33º @ 9700 Sluffs on NE aspects near 10,200ft. Widespread buried SH.

Anthracite Mesa: One large collapse on flat meadow at 9500′, producing cracks over 50′ away. Another moderate collapse with 25′ of cracking on “Coney’s” ridgeline, NW facing slope near 11k. Shallow (2-10″) 1F-P windslab produced cracking and stubborn movement.
Pits on SE, SW, N, NE with average HS between 40-120cm. No significant results in BTL pits on SW, SE, N. Intense Solar. Widespread Buried SH 10-20 deep in all areas. ENE facing pit, HS 120cm, 4F-1F hardness slab, F-Hard weak layer 2-3mm FC, 26º slope at 11k.
ECTP19 SC @ 55cm. PSTend 42/100 @ 20141213.

Avalanches: Fresh dry loose avalanches in Climax Chutes (farthest lookers right, and other smaller paths). One Wet loose, south aspect, D1 long running

AVALANCHES: This is probably common knowledge already since I noticed it a few days ago. Skinning up red lady bowl/glades ridge, I observed a small slide on the other side of the bowl (S,SW) around 11,000ft. It looks like there was some skier activity over there, so I imagine it was triggered from a ski cut. Judging from a distance, the slide had about a 60 yard run. Since then, I have not observed any other action on the same aspect. Cheers. Be safe out there.

WEATHER: Blue Bird

UPLOADS:

Red-Lady-Slide

SNOWPACK/AVALANCHE OBS: I am fascinated by this snowpack at the moment.  Clearly it is faceting quickly.  Average HS was 100cm and ski pen while skinning was anywhere from 15cm to 50cm+.  Ski pen while descending was more like 20cm through dry, fast facets.  We had significant signs of instability on all three runs.  Whumpfing and collapsing on everything from the flats to 35º slopes.  I made a big, forceful turn on a convex rollover and we got a big whumpf, but nothing moved.  Is the slab faceting and loosing cohesion, but the buried surface hoar still reacts?  After guiding at tree line and below tree line for eight out of the past ten days, I have seen the signs of instability increase each day.  Yet I feel like it would be really difficult to trigger a slide.  (This says nothing of larger, alpine features.  I have no observations.)

SNOWPACK/AVALANCHE OBS: Surface faceting continuing on shaded aspects and some thin wind crusts found below treeline on open slopes crossloading terrain features North to South. Persistent slab seems to be losing cohesion. Travel on open slopes into the high 30’s slope angle produced one small collapse on a steep roll, but nothing moved and no other signs of instability. Ski pen deepening throughout the week it seems. Poor structure in this zone but low hazard it seems due to any slab cohesion.