Avalanches: Multiple old wet loose avalanches on Purples south face. One that seemed to trigger small slab R1 D1 but underneath a rock outcrop.
Weather: Clear, warm morning, light local winds from SW.
Snowpack: Did a fair amount of probing on a ~12,300 ft contour line on E-NE-N facing slopes HS between 270cm and probe eating. Jan. 29 interface seemed to be down 60-90cm depending on place. Dug a pit on N facing slope at 12,300 near Jenga, HS 355cm , only tested top 110cm’s, no results with CT and ECT tests. Jan. 29 slab was pencil hard resting on 1F hard slab .5mm facets at 60cm. Snow surface primarily stiff wind board and sastrugi. Textured sas skied best. We did trigger one long shooting crack ~50ft on Purples south face, enroute to S Couli, snow surface was still knife hard, boot pen was 1-3 cm. Not sure how deep crack went into pack, we quickly retreated.

Avalanches: No signs of instability during tour + no recent avalanches observed.
A majority of the steeper slopes and rollovers appeared to slide in the basin during the natural cycle post running on the mid-Jan surface facet layer.
Weather: Clear, warm, light SW winds
Snowpack: HS ~140cm. Ski Pen 10 – 15 cm, Boot Pen ~30 cm.
Surface snow was a mixed bag of sun crusts, wind effected snow and decaying powder/facets. There was also quite a bit of new surface hoar located at lower, tree covered areas around Gunsight Pass road. We did not observe this new layer as we moved higher.
Dug very briefly to see the mid-Jan surface facet layer + observe any SH that survived and was buried. Upper ~50 cm was F to 4F+ of what appeared to be rounding facets from our recent storm. This sat over a stout 1F slab. The mid Jan surface facets separated the two layers. Did not conduct stability tests but the SF layer appeared small + showed smaller grains that I remember from prior pits. There were no SH layers in the area I dug.

Avalanches:
Weather: Mostly Clear, a few high thin cirrus clouds. Calm winds at ridgeline. Hot enough to lay down and take a nap.
Snowpack: Near and above treeline snow surface conditions are just rocked by previous winds. Lots of wind effected snow, some firm wind board 1-3″ thick and some wind textured curdled cream type snow. Ski pen about 10cm on the lumpy cream type snow.

Dry snow on NE and N facing slopes. Southeast facing slopes only seemed to be moist down 5-10cm. More protected and steeper SE slopes probably had a thicker moist surface.

Avalanches: See photo
Weather:
Snowpack:

baldy

Avalanches: Nothing recent, except small loose wet on due south, rocky slope approx 14:30. Did not notice on sled in so assume it was new
Weather: Bluebird. Winds light in the am but increased in early pm, mostly out of the southwest. Minor snow transport
Snowpack: North facing slope below Schuylkill Peak. HS 240cm. Nonreactive to stability tests. Highly variable snow surface but textured surfaces skied fine.

Avalanches: A new wet loose slide on SE slopes of Gothic Spoon rock band (D1), otherwise no signs of instability other than old crowns from previous storm cycle.
Weather: Warm temps, above freezing with moderate down valley (NW) winds keeping things cool. High temp of +6 in valley floor where sheltered from the wind.
Snowpack: Well settled snowpack with some sun crusts, wind crusts, wind stiffened and a little pow. Average HS 140cm. Moist snow in the valley on anything tipped to the south. NNE facing snow remained dry. Ski pen 6″ Boot pen a little more than a foot.

Avalanches: Large natural spanning most of M face (NNE aspect); large natural running the length of the ridgeline on skier’s right side of the bowl we skied (ENE aspect); large natural below tree line along skin ridge (E aspect) that is obvious from the highway, with debris piles in the exit gully. Lots of others, including some small but surprisingly low angle pockets, along Gibson Ridge.
Weather: Clear skies, moderate NW wind, temps near 0F at start warming into teens by mid-morning
Snowpack: North aspects wind scoured and punchy to rock hard. Some collapsing and cracking on 30+ degree north-facing slopes near treeline. Skied variable snow in the main east-facing bowl from the high point above M face. Lots of wind impact in the bowl; rock hard but smooth in skier’s left half to punchy sastrugi in the skier’s right half.

Avalanches: See video. One fresh looking hard slab looked like it failed in the past few days due to cornice fall. HS-NC-R2-D2.5-O. Slab was pencil hard, up to 140 cm thick, averaging ~60 cm. Failed on 1mm rounding facets, 4F hard (I think Jan 14 facet layer), and stepped down to the ground in places, which was only another 30 cm deeper or so.
Observed several dozen additional undocumented persistent slabs from 2/1 cycle, on a variety of aspects and elevations, D2 to D2.5 in size. Most appeared to run mid-pack (Jan layers), but some went at the ground on depth hoar. Regardless, crown sizes were all pretty similar; there wasn’t much of a midpack between the January layers and early season depth hoar here.
About 5 small loose wet ran naturally either today or yesterday. S to W aspects NTL.
Weather: Light winds. few clouds, warm temps
Snowpack: Surface is a trashy mix of wind board, sastrugi, and meltfreeze crusts.
Got one small, soft collapse below treeline on a flat slope, and 5 or 6 loud collapses on a NW facing bowl N/ATL, radiating up to 40 feet with shooting cracks. These were on discontinuous slabs ~1-1.5 ft thick over depth hoar (3-4mm, fist hard) near a windscoured ridgeline, ~30 degree slope. Would expect the slab to become more continuous lower on the slope.
Didn’t get onto anything too steep and sunbaked, but water wasn’t moving beyond the top couple inches of the surface on 20-25 degree slopes with southwesterly tilts.

Crowns from 2/1 cycle. East face of Gothic.

Crowns from 2/1 cycle. SE aspects on White Mtn

Crowns from 2/1 cycle. S aspect on White Mtn

Crowns from 2/1 cycle. SW aspect on White Mtn.

Fresh looking crown on NE aspect above Perry Creek. Looks like it failed in the past 3 or 4 days. HS-NC-R2-D2.5-O.

Fresh looking crown on NE aspect above Perry Creek. Looks like it failed in the past 3 or 4 days. HS-NC-R2-D2.5-O.

Crowns from 2/1 cycle. W aspect above Perry Creek

Crowns from 2/1 cycle. W aspect above Perry Creek

Crowns from 2/1 cycle. NW aspect above Perry Creek

Multiple loud collapses and shooting cracks on a NW aspect N/ATL

Avalanches: Looks like a naturally triggered Avalanche of Redwell Basin.  **CBAC note: first observed 2/4/16**
Weather: Sunny warm morning. Snow got nice and soft by 9am in the sun.
Snowpack:

Avalanches: very top of mt emmons, my 36 pound dog got too close to the edge of the cornice. a school bus sized chunk broke loose. nobody was caught or hurt and the dog is fine. sorry we broke yer cornice……
Weather: Sunny, warm
Snowpack: variable