Crested Butte Area

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/08/2016
Name: JSJ
Subject: Crested Butte Area
Aspect: North East, East
Elevation: 9,300’ to 10,900′

Avalanches:
Weather: Broken to Overcast skies, Light intermittent snow, picking up in intensity around 1400, cold temperatures 4F @ 9:00am, and calm winds.
Snowpack: 10cm HST and lightly snowing intermittently S1-2 throughout the day. Loose, low density new snow, not bonding well to old surface and sluffing in terrain >35* with ski cuts. Previously avalanched slopes continue to refill back in, and are becoming harder to identify, but still lack any slab structure. Slopes with a persistent slab still present, are rapidly losing strength, and showing less potential for propagation.

Irwin Snow Obs

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 01/07/2016
Name: Irwin Guides
Subject: Irwin Snow Obs
Aspect: North
Elevation:

Avalanches:
Weather: Cool temps, goose feathers most the morning, light accumulations, afternoon saw predicted pulse of moisture, 3” of additional very low density snow, heavy at times with low visibility. Only wind was very highest ridgelines, but SW winds were just strong enough to be transporting snow into 4F windslabs 6-12” deep in lee and x-loaded terrain like upper PH left entrance, etc.
Snowpack: 10” new snow as of 1600. Light density, 4% in morning, 3% in afternoon!! Marginal bonding with easterly and southerly suncrusts, stubbornly sluffed if terrain was steep enough (35º+). Not significant enough accumulation to change stability, Irwin remains at LOW danger, but stability due to sluffing decreased slightly. With such fluffy snow, expect high settlement rates over next 36hrs. Vis in afternoon allowed limited visibility to Ruby, widespread new snow sluffing.

Local observation poverty gulch daisy pass area

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 01/07/2016
Name: Randy Felix
Subject: Local observation poverty gulch daisy pass area
Aspect: North
Elevation: Around 11500

Avalanches: Point release new storm snow natural release from cliff bands and steep chutes. One slide maybe R2/D2.
Weather: Snowing. Light winds with some gusting to maybe 15mph. Poor visibility
Snowpack: Approx 11-12 inches of new storm snow. Light powder. Snowpack felt solid. No instabilities noted except for the new snow soft slab avalanche. Was not wittenessed. No cracking or settling. Skied approx 35 degree open bowl and steep trees.

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Anthracite Mesa

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/07/2016
Name: andrew breibart
Subject: Anthracite Mesa
Aspect:
Elevation: BTL/NTL

Avalanches: No instabilities observed on skin tracks or off skin track: no whumping, collapsing, or shooting cracks. Poor visibility precluded observations of surrounding mountains.
Weather: Calm, S-1 precipitation, obscured.
Snowpack: 5 to 7.5 cm of new snow.

Snowpack obs

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/07/2016
Name: Zach Guy
Subject: Snowpack obs
Aspect: North East, East
Elevation: 9,700-10,800

Avalanches:
Weather: Light snowfall in the morning, lull midday, and pulses of light to moderate snowfall in the afternoon. Calm winds. Mild temps. Overcast to broken skies.
Snowpack: About 3″ of new snow. All steep terrain that we came across had avalanched during Christmas cycle and only avalanche concern was shallow sluffs on these slopes. Dug one pit on a low angle slope that hadn’t slid. HS was 95 cm, with 85 cm of slab over fist hard facets. The slab is decaying from the bottom up and top down due to faceting, but there was still about 10cm of 1F remaining near the bottom of the slab. Slab felt noticeably softer/weaker than snow profiles last week of similar snow depth. Propagating results still. (ECTP19 SC Q1)

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North Side of Slate Drainage

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 01/06/2016
Name: MR
Subject: North Side of Slate Drainage
Aspect: North East, East
Elevation: 9,600-11,200

Avalanches: Plenty of old crowns on pretty much all slopes steep enough to slide on east aspects below treeline. A couple old crowns up high just off the ridge below cornices but it doesn’t look like very much ran up there, and the cornices are getting big. We got one minor woomph on the skin track at 11,200, other than that no observed signs of instability.
Weather: warm, like only two pulls to get the sled started warm. Calm winds, snowing S1 pretty consistently throughout the day.
Snowpack: At 11,100 ENE aspect, 220cm HS. 20cm ski pen 45 cm boot pen. This low angle snow felt supportive. The steeper slopes we skied had slid during the christmas storm cycle, we didn’t stop to measure how much new snow was on the bed surface since we were shredding so so sweet, but it felt like 16 inches or so of decomposing new snow up high, same depth of more faceted snow down low.

Snodgrass

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/05/2016
Name: JSJ
Subject: Snodgrass
Aspect: North East, East
Elevation: 9,600’ to 11,200′

Avalanches:
Weather: Light snow from 0900 to 1400, less than an inch of accumulation; very light south wind; temps in low 20s.
Snowpack: Travelled on terrain up to 41* with no signs of instability, besides slow moving and small Loose Dry facet sloughing in steep terrain. Throughout the entire E/NE side of Snodgrass we found an average HS of 80-120cm, with a 10-15cm 1F- hard Persistent Slab resting above 15cms of depth hoar where slope angle was 35* has previously avalanched, and on these slopes total HS was anywhere from 20-60cms, with No Persistent Slab, and the only concern was Loose Dry snow avalanches and hitting buried obstacles. These slopes will again no doubt be ‘repeat offenders’ when another significant load is placed on them.

Irwin Snow Obs

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 01/05/2016
Name: Irwin Guides
Subject: Irwin Snow Obs
Aspect: East, South East, West
Elevation:

Avalanches:
Weather:
Snowpack: Stiff, brittle slab from post-xmas settlement has seen obvious faceting with cold temperatures last 8 days. One ECT on sunny shoulder today produced ECTX, uniform 4F hardness…though not representative of entire terrain and every aspect, is a good sample of how xmas storm slab has changed. UUWW has variable depths and coverage, with some areas 120cm+, while others are clearly faceted through and only 40cm deep. Sun crusts on any southerly slope steeper than 25º. East Barkmarker bed surface has dramatically faceted under and between two melt-freeze crusts and large, striated 4-6mm depth hoar is widespread. 1/4 melt freeze crust from yesterday’s warm temperatures is already propagating under skis.

Searching for the Persistent Slab

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/05/2016
Name: Dustin Eldridge
Subject: Searching for the Persistent Slab
Aspect: North, North East, South, South West, West, North West
Elevation: 9,200-9,800

Avalanches:
Weather: Calm and partly cloudy. Relatively warm due to the cloud cover.
Snowpack: The snowpack in this area appears to have lost a lot of strength. In the vast majority of places, the slab from the Xmas storm has faceted into 10-20 cm slab that is Fist hardness. This slab sits upon either fully developed depth hoar on northerly and shaded aspects, the ground on solar aspects, and crust/facet combos on steeper solar slopes that held snow prior to this storm. HS averages around 70 cm. Some isolated areas carry a thick 1F slab, these are isolated to areas that were heavily loaded from the Xmas storm. Snow surfaces are weak across the compass with lots of near surface faceting, pockets of surface hoar, and a thin 2-3 cm crust on steeper south facing slopes.

Snodgrass

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/05/2016
Name: Donny
Subject: Snodgrass
Aspect: North East, East
Elevation: 9,600’ to 11,000′

Avalanches:
Weather: Light snow from 0900 to 1400, less than an inch of accumulation; very light south wind; temps in low 20s.
Snowpack: SNOWPACK/AVALANCHE OBS: I skied the skier’s left side of the “Rental Shop” area off of Snodgrass. It had clearly avalanched during the previous cycle, with significant crowns still visible. HS was 50 to 60 cm of pure facets. Primary problem was loose, facet sloughing. This snowpack is totally weak and will not support any new load – something to keep in mind as this next round of storms comes in.