Avalanches: Evidence that nearly all of Mt. Axtell flushed during the recent avalanche cycle. Photos to come. Most crowns are faintly visible now, obscured by winds/snow, but very large (D3, broken trees) debris piles in the valley bottoms of 6th Bowl, 5th Bowl (Green Lake Cirque), 4th Bowl, and 3rd Bowl. Crowns evident in 1st and 2nd Bowl but debris piles didn’t hit valley floor. The crown in 6th bowl was still visible and wrapped all the way around from the north facing side of the bowl to the south facing side of the bowl. Large crowns still visible on Carbon Peak (northerly aspects N/BTL), in the Anthracites (E aspects A/NTL), and on the South side of Axtell (SE, and E aspects N/BTL).
Weather: Very cold temps (multiple puffys) warmed to T-shirt skinning weather in the afternoon on sunny aspects. Clear skies, light SW winds.
Snowpack: Spent the whole day breaking trail in previously untracked terrain, on steep, densely gladed north aspects and open, low angle southerly aspects at all elevations. Noticeably fewer collapses than previous days, but we still got 4 or 5 large ones, initiated by jumping on the snowpack. Scariest snowpack structure was observed on a SW aspect above treeline, where there was a hard wind crust capping a very weak facet layer under our recent slab (~2 feet thick); this seemed to be inhibiting settlement and strengthening of the layer, and we got one large collapse initiated without jumping. On less wind-affected slopes, the slab and weak layer interface was still soft enough that we could impact the weak layer by jumping, but just not seeing the same widespread zip in the snowpack.
Reverse cornices from recent NE winds, and shallow, stiff windslabs with cracking on SW aspects near treeline. Top few inches of snow surface became moist on southerly aspects today.
We descended a steep NE bowl near/above treeline that had avalanched during the cycle. Snowpack structure was about a foot of low density snow over dirt or crusty bedsurface. No signs of instability but plenty of rocks to ding.

E aspect BTL on Axtell

6th Bowl on Axtell. SE to S aspect shown, crown wrapped below the photo to N aspects as well

Crowns on Carbon, N aspect N/BTL.

Crowns visible in Anthracites. E, NE, SE aspects

Crown height on Axtell ~3.5 feet

1st Bowl on Axtell

Avalanches: One large slide on NE facing bowl of Cement Mountain from last storm.  size 2.5
Weather: Clear, calm, FRIGID in drainage.
Snowpack: depth of snow (HS) noticeably increased with elevation and distance up cement creek. HS at Cement Creek Ranch was around 50cm, where out near Reno turnoff the HS was 80-100cm.

Dug pit on slight west facing slope, 9800ft. HS 80cm. CT7, CT12, CT9, all sudden collapse right on the ground. 4-6mm cupped depth hoar, F-hardness with 1F>F hard slab above (65cm deep). scary (firm slab, less deep than CB zone, more likely human weight will effect.. On sled, so didnt hear or feel any collapses but roosting was tough with track gouging to weak snow near ground. Trapdoor.

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Avalanches:
Weather: 0945 @ 9500; Clear, Calm, -3ºC; Surf: V
1100 @ 9800’; Clear, Calm, -3ºC; Surf: V; HS: 100cm; SkiPen: 10cm; BootPen: 60cm
1215 @ 10,300′; Clear, Calm, -6ºC; Surf: V; HS: 120cm; SkiPen: 10cm; BootPen: 50cm
1315 @ 10,700’; Clear, Calm, 0ºC; Surf: +; HS: 90cm; SkiPen: 10cm; BootPen: 40cm
1415 @ 9,700’; Clear, Calm, -4.5ºC; Surf: V; HS: 90cm; SkiPen: 10cm; BootPen: 70cm
Snowpack: Fewer whumpfs than yesterday; but the ones we got were massive – mostly confined to shady, low-angle pockets. Moderate hand shears on small slopes over 30º with failures anywhere from 20cm to 40cm down. Consistent skipen throughout the day and the slab seems to be gaining strength quickly. The surface snow around 10,500’ (SW) got warm enough to be called moist in the early afternoon, as the temp climbed above freezing and the sun was strong. A thin crust will form there. Didn’t observe any shooting cracks at any point during the day. We skied one, short, 32º slope and had no signs of instabilities.

I don’t like this snowpack right now. Last week’s snow seems to be gaining strength really quickly. Today was the second day in a row when I felt like I could feel the snow changing drastically as the day went on. But the skiing is getting a lot better. I think it would be easy to get a false sense of security right now. I plan on keeping my mindset at “assessment” for a few-more days at least and want to keep consequences at the front of my mind.

Avalanches:
Weather:
Snowpack: Significant settlement after the x-mas storm. Ski pen ~20cm deep. No collapses observed from our party or another that broke trail in since xmas storm.

Hoped to ski Big Chute since it looked like it slid from Kebler Pass road. When we got there, we couldn’t see any debris at the bottom or make out a crown, so we backed off and ducked into the trees, avoiding Big Chute. Skied down to bottom of NW bowl, second lap in 7-bowl to skin track trees.

Appears that we’re in the early stages of a long period low likelihood, high consequence avalanche activity. Fortunately, there’s lots of terrain that slid during the storm, so there’s many options to avoid the lurking persistent slab problem.

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Avalanches: SS-AE-R2-D2-O/G – Peach Pit (right, NE)
SS-AE-R2-D2-O/G – Wolf’s Lair (left, NE)
SS-AE-R1-D1-O – Jack in the Box Glades.
SS-AE-R1-D1-O/G – Wolf’s Lair (south exit, SE)
Weather: Cold, light winds, mostly clear.
Snowpack: 11,600′-11,900′ – 10-15 cm cracking in upper, new snow layers w/ thrown 2# hand charges through Main Street, Coffey Grounds, and Fran’s Blend.

11,550′ – Peach Pit, 4# air-blast triggered SS-AE-R2-D2-O/G with propagation through potential ‘safe zone.’ Ski-cutting of this path before recent storm cycle had produced R1-D1 failures. (IMG_7182)

Jack in the Box Glades – observed storm cycle, natural activity (full track) in area flanked by on both sides by previous explosive testing. 2# hand charges resulted in SS-AE-R1-D1-O. Generally soft and un-cohesive new snow on weak, faceted grains in this zone.

11,300′ – Wolf’s Lair (left, NE) Last 2# shot of 1st pass produced SS-AE-R2-D2-O/G (IMG_7189). Chose different egress. Subsequent shots on 2nd pass resulted in similar R1/R2-D1/D2 failures on NE – SE aspects. (IMG_7197-(SE), IMG_7198-(NE). “Tender” Extensive collapsing and cracking with travel throughout this zone.

IMG_7198

IMG_7189

IMG_7182

Weather: Wind was generally calm with a light breeze at times. Clear sky. Temps felt like they where in the upper 20’s but didn’t measure.
Snowpack: Last weeks storm snow continues to settle and set up. Ski pen was about 30cm across all slopes traveled. At 11,200ft, SE, 28 slope, boot pen was 50cm, old storm snow 60cm and HS 75cm. Collapsing is becoming more stubborn. Either from lots of jumping or when folks take their skis off and wallow around. Still observed numerous large collapse throughout the day.

Slopes near 30 degrees had a thin zipper crust in places by afternoon.

Avalanches: Another old avalanche from last weeks cycle that didn’t seem to be previously reported In Wolverine. R1D2

IMG_1100

Avalanches: there was a lot of evidence of steeper angle pitches having slid before this last storm. no new avalanches were observed.
Weather: Bluebird
Snowpack: About 15 inches of fresh cold powder on top of unconsolidated powder from previous storm. Lots of whoomphing.

Avalanches:
Weather:
Snowpack:

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