AVALANCHES: Yesterday oberseved N-SS-D0.5 on west facing road cut on 135 by Roaring Judy. Went to ground. Unsure if it occured on 1/17 or 1/16.

WEATHER: Mostly sunny. Warm. No wind!!

SNOWPACK: Hand tests: southern aspects-upper 1 5 to 20 cm-1 cm of yesterday’s snow on top of sun crust of 5cm. Below that suncrust are facets and the cycle repeats itself with a layer cake of sun crusts and facets.

north aspects-15 to 20 cm of F snow.

Warm temperatures on open part of skin track resulted in clumping snow on skins in January!!

UPLOADS:

AVALANCHES: Snowboarder triggered, small point release. R2D1-2 From summit zone between 1st and 2nd bowl. ~37 degrees. Just top layer, ran from summit area to where slope mellows.

WEATHER: Light Northwest/North winds, clear, moderate to warm temps

SNOWPACK: Noticed ~3″ Wind Slab at ridgeline

UPLOADS:

AVALANCHES: Two fresh windslabs off of SE face of Ruby, and 2 fresh debris piles below the east face of Owen (presumably also windslabs, but didn’t see the start zones), all relatively small, D1 to D1.5. The windslabs on Ruby were roughly 100 feet wide and 8″ to 12″ thick. SS-N-R1-D1.5-U. Saw one snowmobile triggered windslab on a small, windloaded terrain feature, E aspect ATL, up 10″ thick.. SS-AM-R1-D1-I, We skier triggered a wet loose avalanche on a south aspect that picked up a fair amount of snow by the bottom, running on the Jan 11th crust. . WL-AS-R1-D1.5-I
See photos.

WEATHER: Moderate westerly winds. Few clouds. Warm.

SNOWPACK: Above treeline on south aspects, the snow surface is melt-freeze crust. The Jan 11 meltfreeze crust is thick and supportive, with about 4-6″ of dry to moist new snow above it and a ~1″ thick MFcrust at the surface. East and Northeast aspects held dry snow, with the surface mostly wind crusts, and a few patches of softer, rippled faceted snow. Pockets of denser, thicker, windloaded snow.

UPLOADS:

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AVALANCHES: One natural soft slab involving the recent storm snow on an East aspect ATL on Schuykill Peak that failed sometime in the past 5 days, SS-N-R2-D1.5-I Looked to be about a foot deep and 100-200 feet wide. Not much else for recent activity except some smaller sluffs and a small windslab on crossloaded SW above treeline.

WEATHER: Light west winds, clear skies, mild temps. Some plumes observed off of Ruby Range.

SNOWPACK: No new snow. In flat terrain, snowpack was supportive about 70% of the time, and trapdoor the rest. One collapse noted. As slopes steepened, there was little concern for persistent slab. Mostly meltforms throughout the snowpack and some moist facets below the several supportive crusts near the surface. Shallow snow depths between 20 and 60 cm. No signs of instability on slopes up to 40 degrees. The crust sandwhich at the surface (Very thick Jan 11 crust/1-3″ of soft snow/ thin surface crust) could be a big concern with future storms as that soft layer below today’s thin surface crust facets out.

SNOWPACK/AVALANCHE OBS: Traveled primarily in low angle terrain in valley bottom.  Noticed large collapses, and cracks traveling upwards of 100ft, primarily in areas that were more north facing and wind affected.  Although a ECT on E aspect showed no result, and in this particular spot the midpack seemed to be interfacing well with the December 13th layer.  Thin crust found on more southerly and steeper aspects.  Intact buried surface hoar found near the surface on all aspects.  On northern aspects the midpack had deteriorated to points where ski penetration was over 75% of the snowpack. Small natural avalanche seen on S, SE aspect below the Gothic Spoon.

SNOWPACK/AVALANCHE OBS: Travel on N and NW aspects near and below tree line on slopes around 35* produced lots of widespread collapsing and cracking. Snow profiles showed an HS of 107 cm in valley floor and 150cm at 11,000′. Snowpack structure was 30-60 cms of soft snow (F & 4F) overlying a 20-40 cm thick 1F hard persistent slab over depth hoar. Test results produced repeatable moderate CT failures with sudden collapse failure character at the Dec 13 interface 1-1.5 M deep and again at the ground level. (See pic below).  Other skiers in the zone reported skier triggering a small slab on a steep convex roll on N facing terrain about 60cms deep size D1-

SNOWPACK/AVALANCHE OBS: HS 40cm – 100cm, depending on aspect and elevation.  Surface mostly surface facets at all elevations and aspects.  Ski pen 10cm; but would go to 50 cm (full depth) in shallow areas around aspen trees.  Multiple signs of instabilities – large whumpfing and shooting cracks – all in shallow areas, mostly on west aspects.  It feels to me like the slab is deteriorating, but this is making it easier to effect the weak layer.  But nothing really happens because the slab is barely hanging on.  This is just a “feeling” – not much science behind it.

AVALANCHES: Lots of small sluffs running off cliff bands from Schuylkill all the way around to Angel Pass in the basin. Did not observe any slides stepping down into the deeper part of the snowpack.

WEATHER: Sunny skies all day with no wind. Temp’s were coldest at valley bottom and gradually warmed as we ascended. Felt like March or April above tree line in sunny spots.

SNOWPACK: 25-30cm of very low density snow from the previous storm was found throughout Baxter Basin. Sunny slopes were starting to develop a crusty surface especially later in the day. New snow seemed to be bonding well to the hard crust it sat on. Did not dig down to the bottom but did not see or feel any obvious signs of instability within the persistent slab/depth hoar area of the snowpack. Steepest slope skied was 30-35 degrees.

AVALANCHES: Large slide on Baldy “WSC bowl” fracture propagated the the entire face. Looks like new storm snow from my zoom lens. Slide ran approximately 1000 feet.

WEATHER: Sun, Inversion, strong ridgline winds

SNOWPACK: We traveled on Southeast, East and North East. Stout meltfreeze with a 4-5 inches on top, phone book windslabs at ridglines. North trees soft, deep, felt somewhat consolidated underneath.

UPLOADS:

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AVALANCHES: Observed a natural R2 D2 slab avalanche on a northwest facing bowl above paradise divide on Baldy. The slide appeared to be confined to the most recent snow with crown depths approximatly 10″-14″. Looks like this occurred in the last 48 hours.

WEATHER: sunny and warm. Inversion in full effect.

SNOWPACK: Skied west, southwest faceing aspects to the valley floor with no signs of instability. We encountered a highly variable snowpack throughout our tour.