Mount Emmons Observations

CB Avalanche Center March 15, 20152014-15 Observations

LOCATION: Crested Butte Area
DATE OF OBSERVATION: 03/14/2015
NAME: SK

SUBJECT: Mount Emmons Observations
ASPECT: North, North East, South, North West
ELEVATION: 8800-12000

WEATHER: Clear skies throughout. Temps well above freezing for most of the day. Calm to light NW winds.

SNOWPACK: No signs of instability noted. Supportive crust on all south aspects until ~10:30. High temps, and calm winds resulted in quick softening of the surface crust as soon as the sun became high and direct. .5cm surface hoar noted on all shaded aspects along with a light crust on NW-W aspects.

Brush Creek Avalanche

CB Avalanche Center March 15, 20152014-15 Observations

LOCATION: Brush Creek Area
DATE OF OBSERVATION: 03/14/2015
NAME: ADB

SUBJECT:
ASPECT:
ELEVATION: BTL/NTL

AVALANCHES: Rollers on open sunny slopes.

Attached avalanche photo from last cycle (7 to 10 days ago). Interesting, as this slide is along the road at Canal Trail. Didn’t see animal tracks and it’s a very small slope but convex and NE facing.

WEATHER: Clear, calm, hot

SNOWPACK: Trace of new snow. BTL-some graupel. Snow became very wet in the afternoon.

UPLOADS:

IMG_20150314_155658263

Carbon Peak

CB Avalanche Center March 14, 20152014-15 Observations

LOCATION: Kebler Pass Area
DATE OF OBSERVATION: 03/13/2015
NAME: DR

SUBJECT: Carbon Peak
ASPECT: South West, West, North West
ELEVATION: 8800-12000

AVALANCHES:

WEATHER: Mix of everything except cold today. AM was partly cloudy with strong solar until noon; winds were calm and temps were 4ºC. At noon it was snowing lightly (S-1), light winds and temps were 2ºC. Less than 1cm of snow fell, with some graupel mixed in. Sun returned around 2PM, strong solar produced local “tornados” on rapidly heating west aspects. Temps jumped to 6ºC quickly. Warm, sunny and calm into the evening.

SNOWPACK: Schmoooo! Toured up on a crust that was at least 2cm thick and still hard until about 2PM. Descent on NNW aspect had 10 to 15cm of ski pen in moist snow, getting pretty wet below 10,000’. Climbed out of gully on a steep (37º) east aspect and felt some collapsing under a surface crust, but nothing moved – no real signs of instabilities. Final descent on a west aspect showed no signs of instabilities even though it was 40cm of stiff, but moist snow over weaker snow to ground.

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Aspen to Crested Butte (via Pearl Pass)

CB Avalanche Center March 14, 20152014-15 Observations

LOCATION: Brush Creek Area
DATE OF OBSERVATION: 03/13/2015
NAME: JSJ

SUBJECT: Aspen to Crested Butte (via Pearl Pass)
ASPECT: North, North East, East, South East, South, South West, West, North West
ELEVATION: 9000-13000

AVALANCHES:

WEATHER: Clear, hot, sunny, and calm on Tuesday. Broken to overcast skies with thin cloud cover beginning Wed mid-day through yesterday afternoon, accompanied by calm to light NW/W winds, warm daytime temps with lots of solar green housing, and a trace of new snow as of 1000 this morning.

SNOWPACK: Aspen side of the range in the Pearl Pass zone had a similar natural avalanche cycle to CB zone, with lots (well over 2 dozen sizable slides observed) of NW/N/NE/E aspects near and above treeline having slid. Mostly all in terrain exposed to wind loading and steeper then 40 degrees. Evidence of small cycle on southerly slopes with recent solar heating. Overall, snowpack seems to have calmed down, with no instabilities noted while traveling in the alpine for 3 days on slopes of all aspects and up to low 40’s in steepness.

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Crested Butte Area

CB Avalanche Center March 13, 20152014-15 Observations

LOCATION: Crested Butte Area
DATE OF OBSERVATION: 03/11/2015
NAME: Brian Lazar

SUBJECT:
ASPECT: North
ELEVATION: BTL, 11300 ft.

AVALANCHES:

WEATHER:

SNOWPACK: http://avalanche.state.co.us/caic/obs/obs_report.php?obs_id=34924

UPLOADS:

Mt. Emmons

CBAC March 12, 20152014-15 Observations

NAME: Evan Ross

DATE: 3/11/15

LOCATION: Mt. Emmons

ELEVATION: 12,000-9,000

ASPECT: N

WEATHER: Thin overcast Clouds created a very warm greenhouse effect below ridgeline where there was no wind. At ridgeling winds where SW light with moderate gusts during the first half of the day.

SNOWPACK:

On north facing upper elevations (ATL/NTL) boot pen averaged about 20cm. HS was around 150cm-195cm on average. Feeling with a probe through the terrain, the PS structure was about 80cm thick with a relatively thin layer of weaker snow below. At these elevations the snow surface stayed dry despite the warm conditions. At lower elevations (BTL) snow surfaces where moist. No obvious or resent sings to instability noticed at all elevations.

ATL snow surfaces on South where still frozen at noon.

Red Lady Bowl

CB Avalanche Center March 10, 20152014-15 Observations

LOCATION: Crested Butte Area
DATE OF OBSERVATION: 03/09/2015

SUBJECT: Red Lady Bowl
ASPECT: South East
ELEVATION: ATL-NTL-BTL

AVALANCHES: No new avalanches or signs of instability observed

WEATHER: Clear skies, light wind on summit

SNOWPACK: The snow was surprisingly cold (and not soft) at 2:30 PM. Thin to moderate crusts were prevalent until low in the bowl and the only moist/soft snow was found on the southern-most slopes below treeline.

UPLOADS:

Snodgrass Observation

CBAC March 10, 20152014-15 Observations

NAME: Evan Ross

DATE: 3/9/15

LOCATION: Snodgrass

ELEVATION: BTL

ASPECT: NE

WEATHER: Mostly clear, real warm again and no wind.

SNOWPACK:

Persistent slab structure is really scary in many places, yet we didn’t feel a single collapse traveling on a variety of slope angles and terrain features. Where the HS is deep, over 150cm say, the facets below the slab have more resistance and better bonding with one another. Where the HS is shallower the facets below the slab are fist hard and full sugar. Boot pen around 20-30cm on all slopes.

AVALANCHE OBS:

All kinds of old carnage on this side of snodgrass. Most of the terrain over 35 degrees has already avalanched, but there are still a few pockets left.

Washington Gultch

CBAC March 9, 20152014-15 Observations

NAME: KristaDATE: 2015.03.08ACTIVITY: Avy 1 ClassLOCATION: Coney’sASPECT: NE

WEATHER: Mostly clear, mostly warm, only a little breezeAVALANCHE/SNOWPACK OBS: Avy 1 class toured up a less than 30 degree north facing slope from 9500 – 11,000ft. 140cm (+/-) snow depth, with a distinct strong over weak snow pack was felt throughout the tour. No signs of instabilities were felt under foot today, however the class was amazed with the amount of avalanches that were visible (literally everywhere) from their ridge top tour. Skiing quality was supportive, penetrating only 20 cm into the snowpack, and no crusts were felt on the north aspects. A new sun crust was forming on the lower angle terrain however, where the sun was affecting the surface of the snow.

Slate River, Paradise Divide

CB Avalanche Center March 9, 20152014-15 Observations

LOCATION: Kebler Pass Area
DATE OF OBSERVATION: 03/08/2015
NAME: Evan Ross

SUBJECT: Slate River, Paradise Divide
ASPECT: E-NE
ELEVATION: Near Treeline

WEATHER: Few clouds, warm temps, no wind.

SNOWPACK: The Slate River valley looks like a war zone and is an absolutely amazing sight seeing tour for an avalanche geek. Just about every piece of avalanche terrain faceting east or north avalanched during the last cycle. All the way from the Happy Chutes to Pittsburgh. There where many paths that ran, that I’ve never seen run before in the last 5 years. There were small pocket slides, too wide crowns extending for a couple thousand feet, too paths running full track into the valley.

Traveled near treeline and nearly found no signs to instability. One fact that could skew these findings is that fact that we had a hard time finding slopes that didn’t avalanche at some point during the recent cycle. I dug two crown profiles along the way with vary different findings and snowapck structure due to their HS.

1st crown profile at an elevation of 10,900ft on a NE facing slope, HS 263cm. Crown was 90cm tall, failing on squashed 1mm FCxr and 1f- hard. CT and DT tests produced no results on this interface.

2nd Crown profile was at ridgeline, elevation 11,600ft, NE facing slope, HS 138. Crown was 85cm tall, failing on 2mm FC and 4f- hard. ECTP-SC 31 with the whole black popping into the pit on a 31 degree slope.

Take home point: The snowpack felt good and stable where the old snowpack was deep before last weeks large storm. The snowpack was concerning and down right scary where the old snowpack was shallow before last weeks storm.

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