Avalanches: Most of the major paths around here ran naturally 2/1, but there were still some slopes that looked like they hadn’t. On the more northerly tilted slopes that had slid, the structure is faceting back to 10-15cm of very soft 1mm facets over crusty bed surfaces, and we were able to skier trigger small and predictable facet sluffs.
Weather: Clear, warm temps. Moderate ridgetop winds, no transport observed on peaks.
Snowpack: See video.  January 14 facet layer (1.5-2mm, Fist hard rounding facets, found on E and NE aspects, 60 to 65 cm deep, under slabs up to 4F+ or 1F-) and Jan 29 surface hoar layer(s) (found on NE aspects, 35-40 cm deep) all still consistently propagating in extended column tests. Repeatable ECTPM results on both layers in all pits. On east aspects the Jan 29 interface is a thin crust with ECTN failures. At noon on a due east slope, ~35 degrees, Tsurface was 0*C, T20 was -3*C, and the Jan 14 facet layer was -4*C 65 cm deep. The top 2 cm was very wet, the next ~8 cm was moist. Dry through the rest of the pack. On northeast aspects, the surface is dry and quickly faceting, with both 1mm near surface facets and surface hoar forming.
No collapsing or cracking observed, although the lower angle terrain that we predominantly traveled on has a noticeably deeper and stronger snowpack than steep terrain because of the Christmas wall-to-wall flush.

Two surface hoar layers buried right next to each other, both produced collapsing results in ECTs

Two surface hoar layers buried right next to each other, both produced collapsing results in ECTs

Shaded paths that ran 2/1 in this area have small facet sluff concerns now, which indicates how weak they are if we see future loading.

Surface hoar and near surface facets growing on shaded slopes.

Weather: Moderate northwest winds at 13,000ft with a few guests on lower ridgelines. Clear sky and warm temps.
Snowpack: Traveled through lots of alpine terrain with only surface obs and quick informal tests. The most worrisome looking areas where old plastered wind slabs, and anywhere a big slope tapered near rock outcrops leading to a shallow snowpack that you could feel obvious persistent slab structure below. We used cation and avoided plenty of areas, and didn’t observe any obvious signs to instability where we traveled.

Northwest facing slopes above treeline are well worked over by the wind. Patches of textured cream with lots of firm texture and windboard. Hugely variable snowpack depth of course and plenty of slopes in extreme terrain looked like they could be in the 60-130cm range and likely harboring some form of persistent slab.

Probed around on some northfacing terrain at 11,000 feet that had below treeline characteristics. Ski pen was about 25-30cm and HS in the 180-200cm range. The bottom 30cm near the ground was a little punchy otherwise progressively harder layers is all you could feel via probe.

Southerly facing slopes also had lots of wind effect. With the same wind textured cream, wind board or firm wind texture scattered about. As snow surfaces started cooling in the afternoon a widespread thin crust was forming.

Avalanches: Had good views of southerly slopes in the higher peaks snow favored part of the zone. Saw very little wet loose avalanche activity. The south and southwest facing slopes off of Schuylkill Mountain were the exception. With several small loose wet avalanches failing on the steep slopes near rock outcrops.

Loose wet avalanches on steep south to southwest slopes. Schuylkill Mountain

Natural Persistent Slab that failed around February 1st. Westerly aspect around 11,000ft. Looked like it may have been triggered by a smaller wind slab failing higher up in the terrain.

Avalanches: HS-AB-R3-D2-O/G on 14lb airblast on 38º, west facing, shallow slope. 1-1.5m debris
Weather: Clear skies, intense solar, Above freezing at study plot (inversion) by 10:30-11am. Minimal wind at all elevations. One of those spring-like days.. High 36º
Snowpack: Stability tests in untraveled terrain in Rooster Rock area (south of Asia..) showed very poor structure, ECTV x2, ECTX, PST 30/130end on 20151211 depth hoar. The one extended column with no propagation was an interesting outlier?, after getting continuously poor results. Came back around with a 12£ ANFO airblast for same area with no result… bad shot plaement? False unstables?

Then went and poked into untraveled New World terrain… no results on all shots except shallow rock bank airblast, probably would have gone with lighter shot, but just happened to go on “stamp” Airblast. Average HS in krumholtz on upper half of new world has 200cm, but lower, steeper terrain is much shallower, more similar to rest of UUWW. Wet snow on SW facing terrain even in NW this afternoon.

East and south snow surfaces were moistening by noon.

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Avalanches:
Weather: Clear sky with some thin clouds developing in the afternoon. Calm winds, strong solar.
Snowpack: Toured on mostly low angle or sub 30 degree terrain. Snow surface on low angle was staying dry, while SE slopes over 25 degrees had a moist snow surface and all south slopes were also moist. No obvious signs to instability, and 29th interface was in the 4-5cm range and would have been hard to collapse.
Briefly got an easterly slope that had avalanched back during the Christmas cycle. Quick obs pointed at a poor structure that would need more time to understand if it was something to be concerned about.

Avalanches: Observed various naturals on the north face of Snodgrass. Looked like they mostly ran around the tail end of that last cycle. Saw one large slab that had slid on the upper steep nose top of the ridge. Mid way down another large slab went, saw two different layers that went. At the bottom two gullies had slid down across the road.
Weather: Sunny
Snowpack: Deep

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Avalanches: On a tour up Strand Hill noted multiple SS avalanches on the S facing hillside above the East River Trail. Several appear to have reached or crossed the trail. Every steep (>40 degrees?) section of that hillside had slid above the 1st mile or two of the trail. Looked to have occurred in the past 48 hours or so? Several pocket slabs below the trail had occurred as well.
Weather: Bluebird becoming breezy in the p.m.
Snowpack:

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Avalanches: Got small glipmse of Double Top natural avalanche as well as numerous D1 wet loose slides confined to new storm snow out of steep, rocky terrain on SE-S-SW facing slopes.
Weather: clear to slightly overcast skies midday, increasing moderate NW-N winds. Strong radiation, above freezing temperatures.
Snowpack: Moderate NW-N winds transporting small amounts of loose snow from surface, not forming signifcant windslabs. Numerous booming collapses, and secondary collapses from others farther back in skin track. Some subtle cracks were observed from these large whoomphs as well. DUg one pit on a SW facing slope, NTL, 10,400ft, ECTP20, ECTN17, CT15 all sudden planar, associated with crusts and small 1mm near crust facets above several different crusts. In general, slabs were 50-70cm thcikness.

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Avalanches:
Weather: WEATHER: Finally a day that felt warm! Thermometer said 15 but felt like 30. Blue skies and calm winds at TH but wind banners off Gothic, Emmons, and a few others in the north end of the valley.
Snowpack: SNOWPACK/AVALANCHE OBS: We were not in any Avy terrain today and stayed close to TH due to time and our big group. We travelled easily on the snow with our skis/split boards but boot pen was 50+ cm in lots of places. HS averaged 95- 130 cm.

Avalanches:
Weather: Lots of blue and not much for white skys. Calm winds with a few light gusts where we traveled, blowing or swirling snow at times on Mt Emmons summit.
Snowpack: Didn’t get into much for avalanche terrain. 1/29th interface was down about 40cm and HS was in the 100-130 on most slopes traveled. A few hand pits couldn’t get any snow to move on the 29th interface. Snow surface was moist near trees and where it was protected from any air movement. Ski pen about 20cm and boot pen was down to the 29th interface.