Avalanches: It is pretty safe to say we have hit a critical mass. We have seen several natural slides to the ground in our terrain, as well as impressive explosive triggered slides in untrafficked terrain. Its full on out there. MAJOR AVALANCHES. East Barkmarker nearly went wall to wall from one single handshot full depth. NATURAL avalanches observed within our terrain in largely untrafficked areas included Crotch (SS-N-R4-D2.5-O- south facing 11,600ft), a deep pocket in Whiskey (south facing 11,000ft) and Sunny Shouder down low in skiers right half, as well as a pocket in Mean, all full depth to ground.
Weather: Scuddy, partly cloudy to overcast skies most of day with light snow. Light winds, and cool temperatures in low 20s. Heavy snow began 1500, continued through 1630, 2-3”/hr, whiteout visibility at times.
Snowpack: 4” of water last 9 days. Huge wind event last night Seeing 6-12 foot drifts on 70 Ridge this morning.

Avalanches: Monument-SS-ASu-R2-D2.5-O
West Wall-SS ASc-R2-D2-O
Forest-SS-AE-R1-D1.5-O(Multiple)
Big Hole-SS-N-R2-D2-O
Horse shoe-SS-N-R1-D1-O
Weather: Slight clearing after first wave of storm w/moderate wind from the west,
Snowpack: HS of 47″ storm total of 27″ on the morning of the 23rd . W and N aspects that have not been boot packed, and have had moderate patrol traffic(including ski cuts and explosives work). Initial hand charges have not been as effective as ski cuts. On the 22nd there were multiple slides triggered after explosives w/ ski cuts running on an old snow interface at the ground. There was no cohesion in the snow pack but there was propagation up to 200′. ON the 23rd the wind had created more of a to slab on leeward aspects and become more reactive to explosives and ski cuts, but still more reactive to ski cuts in general.

Avalanches: Observed roughly a dozen natural avalanches in the Coney’s vicinity, all breaking about 3 feet deep on basal facets, D1.5 to D2 in size on slopes steeper than 35 degrees, NE and E facing aspects N/BTL. Debris running into dense trees where the typical uptrack is. Part of Coney’s bowl flushed, quite a bit remains in the balance.
Weather: Scattered clouds this morning built to overcast this afternoon with light snowfall. 1″ of accumulation by 4:00 p.m. Light winds and cold temps.
Snowpack: Constant and huge collapses, rattling trees and shooting up slope long distances (~100 ft or more), even in dense trees. Shooting cracks spanning entire slopes. SCARY snowpack. About 3 feet of slab (4F up to F) over the problematic facet layer (F). Slabs became denser and thicker near ridgeline due to previous wind affect. Roughly 20″ of recent storm snow; upside-down in open slopes due to last night’s winds, with up to 8″ of denser, wind affected snow over lower density storm snow. It felt like there was zero margin for error in terrain selection today.

Recent natural avalanche, NE aspect near treeline.  SS-N-R3-D2-O

Shooting cracks and slab creeping downslope but holding put after a large collapse from ridgeline.  NE aspect.

Avalanches: Most of the saddle between Gothic and Snodgrass has run, though nothing has made it to the run-out zone. Fractures 1-2 feet deep and widespread. Only one of the large slide paths above the road ran and that just in the starting zone area so most all that snow is still up there. Most of the peak area on Gothic and the bowl beyond it ran but again did not carry far- not a lot of density in this new snow. But most starting zones around Gothic have cleared out- sadly though not the big paths above the road to town.
Weather: The earlier snow totals hold (19″ new and 0.96″ water in past 24 hours) and actually it has started to clear up. Light to moderate wind is moving a little snow- enough to make the ski to the office like doing isometrics the whole way as it partially filled in the deep, old track. Slow. The only change is that the snow settled another ½” to 49½” on the ground now. Low temp. dipped to 12ºF and it is about 50% cloud cover.
Snowpack:

Road tour of avalanche activity, viewed from valley bottom along roadways near Crested Butte, looking up to 12,000 ft.   Roughly 30 natural avalanches observed, ranging from D1 to D2 in size. Most, if not all, appeared to fail on facet layers near the ground.  Majority of the slides we observed were below treeline, several near treeline on N through E aspects, and one SE aspect ATL.  Observations of alpine were limited due to vis.  No slides observed on southerly aspects below treeline; these slopes were generally bare prior to mid-December storm cycle.     -Zach Guy

Gibson Ridge. Northeast aspect below treeline

Slate River Road. NE aspect below treeline

Gibson Ridge. East aspect below treeline

Whetstone Mtn. E/SE aspect above treeline

Whetstone Mtn. East aspect near treeline

Gibson Ridge. East aspect below treeline

Peanut Lake Road. NE aspect below treeline

Peanut Lake Road. NE aspect below treeline

Washington Gulch Road. NE aspect below treeline

Natural and remotely (?) triggered slides in Washington Gulch. E aspect below treeline

Above Meridian Lake. NE aspect below treeline

Washington Gulch. NE aspect below treeline

Washington Gulch. NE aspect below treeline

Washington Gulch. NE aspect below treeline

Whetstone
East aspect Below treeline

X Chutes on Whetsone. NE aspect Near Treeline

Avalanches:
Weather: Whatever happened to moderation? When i did the weekly summary (gothicwx.org) Saturaday night there was just one winter in the past 42 with less snow to date and just 2 with less snowpack on that date. Now, it took 25 minutes to ski the 0.4 miles to work (i blame that on the new snow, not my ‘advancing’ years). –So, steady snow all night with obscured cloud cover and no wind (thankfully) at all. There is 19″ new snow with 0.78″ of water (all but 2″ of snow overnight). Snowpack at 44″, now winter’s deepest. Snow continues steady, still with no wind (did i say ‘thankfully’ yet?) and temp. between 18 and 19 F all night. billy
Snowpack:

Avalanches: Shooting cracks and collapsing on just about every slope traveled. Road cuts would crack but not move do to the depth of slab relative to the short size of slope. One slope collapsed and propagated a couple hundred feet away and released a 50ft wide 4ft deep avalanche. D1 given the size of the slope.
Weather: Overcast, no wind, snowing hard all day. Mostly S2.
Snowpack: Snowpit on NE at 10,500ft. HS140, 12/18 SH at 56cm, 12/14 facets at 45cm. Generally fist hard snowpack with very little 4f in the middle. Ski pen was waist to belly deep breaking trail and boot pen would have been to the ground if i had 140cm long legs.

Avalanches: (3) D1-D2 slides triggered this afternoon.
SS-ASu-R2-D1-O
SS-AE-R3-D2-O
SS-AE-R2-D1.5-O

all on novemeber basal facets. slab 1F in places, F-Hardness on upper half
Weather: Nearly a foot overnight of 7%. Light to moderate west winds with a few stronger
gusts. Temps stayed in low to mid 20s. Clouds continued to obscure surrounding
backcountry. Moderate snow all day, heavy at times, especially after 1300 snow
intensified and wind stopped.
Snowpack: West: Generally soft and un-cohesive new snow just slightly slabbed up with good
cracking in the top 20cm’s on handshots in the morning. After lunch, snow
intensified and a route in Sunset on UWW produced three slides, one on each of the steeper features, all in previously lightly or un-travelled terrain “backcountry-like”
snowpack. Not many large collapses, or cracking, just isolated explosive results (2
avalanches, and one ski cut triggered slide that propagated 50ft above cut.

IMG_2766

IMG_2773

IMG_2772

IMG_2770

Avalanches: East bowl above happy ending, R1.5D1.5, no crown visible, only observed from the AMR parking lot. Appeared to be a wind/storm slab that released just below ridge and ran in the new snow, stopping on the bench above the last pitch. Didn’t appear to step down or propagate further. See pic.

Also a couple loose snow sluffs had released naturally and ran a short distance in tree and big chute.
Weather: Calm, intermittently broken skies to s2-3 snowfall. Most of the day felt warm, maybe 25F
Snowpack: Around 14 inches of storm snow from the last 36 hours of activity. Some drifting and wind lips but no other signs of slab formation in the new snow, besides east bowl avalanche noted below. No cracking or whumpfing. A couple loose snow sluffs had released naturally and ran a very short distance.

P1000510anthracite-slide