Snowboarder triggered slide on park cone

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Cement Creek Area
Date of Observation: 04/07/2016
Subject: Snowboarder triggered slide on park cone north chute towards the dam at Taylor Resevoir
Aspect: North
Elevation: 11,900ft

Avalanches: About a 1 foot deep windblown slab broke loose from the top of the chute and traveled around 500 feet down the slope until it slowed down and stopped. It dragged a snowboarder down the slope about 50-60 feet. He managed to stay upright and cut into a safe zone.
Weather: Bluebird day around 10am
Snowpack: A fairly deep layer of powder up top with hard packed crust underneath.

20160407_111435

Corn to slop

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 04/07/2016
Name: Zach Guy
Subject: Corn to slop
Aspect: East, South, South West, West
Elevation: 10,000-12,000 ft

Avalanches: A couple new D1 wet loose on East face of Mt. Owen ATL today.
Weather: Hot day…Temps reached 50F at 10k and 38F at 12k under calm/light winds and few clouds.
Snowpack: Solid refreeze overnight. Good corn skiing in the morning turned to sloppy mush by the p.m. Top 6″ or so hasn’t quite transitioned to mature wet grains yet; skier triggered a few rollerballs on East NTL around 11 a.m. and skier triggered widespread large rollerballs on West aspects around 2:00 p.m.

Mt. Emmons

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 04/04/2016
Name: Zach Guy
Subject: Mt. Emmons
Aspect: North, North East, South East
Elevation: 9,100-12,100 ft

Avalanches: No signs of instability observed except skier triggered pinwheels on ENE aspects NTL and a handful of wet loose that ran sometime in the past three days on various sunbaked slopes, uncertain of their timing.
Weather: Very warm, moderate SW wind, few clouds increased to broken through the day.
Snowpack: Freewater accelerating deeper into the snowpack, with unsupportive wet grains observed on SE NTL and E/ENE BTL this afternoon (Boot pen was knee to waist deep in wet snowpack).
Targeted profiles on suspect persistent slab slopes showed variable results on the March 6th facet layer below a faceting or wetting slab. See photo captions below for profile/test results.

Coon Basin, NE aspect Near treeline. 35 cm, 4F+ slab over thin crust with rounding facets above and below. ECTN17 on 1.5mm rounding facets below the crust.

Coon Basin, NE aspect Near treeline. 35 cm, 4F+ slab over thin crust with rounding facets above and below. ECTN17 on 1.5mm rounding facets below the crust.

Climax Chutes. NNE aspect near treeline. 42 cm, 4F- faceting slab over 1.0 mm, 4F- rounding facets. ECTN 28 on this layer.

Climax Chutes. NNE aspect near treeline. 42 cm, 4F faceting slab over 1.0 mm, 4F- rounding facets. ECTN 28 on this layer.

Crown profile of skier triggered avalanche last week in Climax Chutes. ENE aspect NTL. 38 cm wet (top 15cm) to moist slab over 1.5mm F+, dry rounding facets, capped by a thin crust in places. ECTP19, SC

Crown profile of skier triggered avalanche last week in Climax Chutes. ENE aspect NTL. 38 cm wet (top 15cm) to moist slab over 1.5mm F+, dry rounding facets, capped by a thin crust in places. ECTP19, SC.  Water pooling along upper dust/crust layer, 15 cm deep.

Looking east across the crown of the skier triggered slide in Climax Chutes last week.

Looking east across the crown of the skier triggered slide in Climax Chutes last week.

Persistent Slab

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 04/04/2016
Name: Dustin E
Subject: Persistent Slab
Aspect: North, North East, East, North West
Elevation: 11,300

Avalanches: None.
Weather: Clear, calm, and warm.
Snowpack: Wanted to investigate the persistent slab on NE slopes. Dug two pits on similar aspect and same elevation, second pit was more NNE facing than NE. HS varied between 85-115 cm, this area is rather rocky though. Two distinct dust layers present around 20 and 40 cm below snow surface. ECTP 13 sudden collapse on the NE slope, breaking on the prominent dust layer 40 cm below and ECTP 9 Sudden collapse on the NNE slope, breaking on the same layer. Videos to come on facebook.

Wet Loose in Ruby Range

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 04/03/2016
Name: Zach Guy
Subject: Wet Loose in Ruby Range
Aspect: North East, East, South East
Elevation: 11,000-12,650 ft

Avalanches: Numerous D1 to D1.5 natural wet loose avalanches ran today on E and SE aspects ATL, a few reaching to ENE aspects. There were several similar slides that ran yesterday on SE and S aspects ATL.
Weather: Warm temps, few clouds, light to moderate westerly wind at ridgetop
Snowpack: About 4-8″ of unconsolidated recent storm snow thawed and became moist to wet through the day. Touchy wet loose conditions (large pinwheels and pushy snow) on east aspects around 10:30 a.m., and on SE aspects by 11:30 a.m. Steep NE aspects felt dry, while moderate to low angle pitches on the same aspect were moist.

Natural wet loose avalanches off of SE face of Afley Peak

Natural wet loose avalanches off of SE face of Afley Peak

Scarp Ridge NE Natural

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 04/03/2016
Name: Alex Banas
Subject: Scarp Ridge NE Natural
Aspect: North East
Elevation: 12,000

Avalanches: One natural D2 avalanche on a NE facing slope of Scarp Ridge that is new since yesterday. In the photo you can see two ski tracks skiers right from the day before that did not trigger the slide. SS-N/AC-R2-D2-O. Estimate the crown is 18″ thick and failed above the 3/22 dust layer(?), maybe cornice triggered.
Weather: Few clouds, warm temps, calm SW winds
Snowpack:

SCARP-2
SCARP

Oh-Be-Joyful Basin

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 04/02/2016
Name: Zach Guy
Subject: Oh-Be-Joyful Basin
Aspect: North, North East
Elevation: 9,000-12,000 ft

Avalanches: More natural small wet loose today, observed on E through S aspects, all elevations in the upper end of the basin which got more snow out of the last storm.
Weather: Few clouds, light west winds. Warm temps
Snowpack: See video. One pit on N aspect NTL; ECTX results on March 6 facet layer, 85 cm deep (ECTN failure with additional loading steps). Facet layer is noticeably smaller and harder than in recent obs closer to town. Snow surfaces were refreezing wet grains on all aspects except due north where we traveled.

Ant, upper Yule Creek

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 04/02/2016
Name: Evan Ross
Subject: Ant Peak, upper Yule Creek
Aspect: North East, East
Elevation: 11,000-12,600

Avalanches: saw a few old storm slabs on easterly facing slopes. Crowns looked to be around 30cm deep. These old avalanches were in the D1-1.5 range.
Weather: Clear sky, strong solar, calm winds in the alpine.
Snowpack: Toured mostly above treeline in a snow favored part of the range. Sluffing on steep northerly facing slopes and small natural loose wet avalanches on east-south-west aspects. No other avalanche problems observed. Ski pen on shaded slopes was about 25cm with the top couple inches of the snowpack faceted with little cohesion. This weaker snow at the surface created the small sluffing problem on these aspects.

11,000ft, NE aspect, 35 degree slope. March 6th interface was very small rounding faceted particles with no hardness difference from surrounding layers. Our most recent dust event was down 50cm and a CT test produced no results down to that interface. March 6th interface was down about 80cm.

11,600ft, East aspect, 28 degree slope. Moist snow surface. Nothing significantly concerning about the snowpack structure down to March 6th dusty interface. Snow surfaces on east aspects were all moist and shedding roller balls or small loose wet avalanches up to our hight point at 12,600ft

Hot pow

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 04/01/2016
Name: Zach Guy
Subject: Hot pow
Aspect: South East, South, South West, West
Elevation: 10,000-12,000

Avalanches: Lots of aggressive hi-marking in Ruby Range with no signs of instability except a couple small natural wet loose off of rocky SE and S aspects ATL.

Weather: Few to scattered clouds, calm to light winds, temps rose to 20F at 12k and 30F at 10k.

Snowpack: ~8” of snow settled and moistened through the day on most slopes. Some rollerballing and minor wet loose from ski cuts on sunbaked slopes this afternoon.

Irwin Cat Operation

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 03/31/2016
Name: Irwin Guides
Subject: Irwin Cat Operation
Aspect:
Elevation:

Avalanches:
Weather: no signs of instability. The skiing was boot top deep and we did not feel an old layers below in the top bowl. I put in a couple of ski cuts when I dropped in but got no movement. Seems like the new snow has bonded well in this area.
Snowpack: no signs of instability. The skiing was boot top deep and we did not feel an old layers below in the top bowl. I put in a couple of ski cuts when I dropped in but got no movement. Seems like the new snow has bonded well in this area. HST 10″