Weather: Not a lick of wind and warmer temps with stronger solar then the previous day.
Snowpack: Traveld through many different slopes in the upper OBJ drainage while simply probing for snowpack structure. Strong over weak structure would be very obvious in one location while 15ft to the side the layering would be much more uniform. This widely variable snowpack structure could be found on all slopes traveled, E, SE, NW, NE and elevations above. Collapsing was felt on many of these slopes, mostly while traveling over the slab margins. Though no natural or recent avalanche activity could be found in the area. So Persistent slab structure existed and could be found on the aspects traveled above, but the avalanche problem seemed to be very stubborn. Last weeks strong wind events largely lead to this variable snowpack structure. With the same slope being striped down to say, 40cm in one area and loaded with a hard slab over weaker facets say, 100cm deep only 15ft away from the shallower area.

Avalanches: 11/21/15 “we watched two skiers skin up and set this off early afternoon. The two skiers are visible at the top of the slide in this pic (barely). (no other information was provided, but if you look hard you can make out the old crown of the slide triggered early november just to the looker’s right of this slide -fx’r note)

Baldy slide (pic taken from CBAC facebook page)

Avalanches: No visible new slab activity.

Weather: Saturday was quite cold to begin the day. Elevation gain and solar kept air temp comfortable. Consistent light winds from the west near and above treeline. Didn’t see any snow transport occuring.
Snowpack: Highly variable on ascent track. Most notable was numerous large collapses near and above treeline in terrain that was loaded and significantly stiffened by the wind. A common theme with these collapses was the relative low angle terrain they occurred on. Quick probing showed very weak crusts underneath these dense wind slabs. Areas that were steeper had stronger crusts below the latest snow and we didn’t experience significant collapsing. Snow surface remained dry above treeline on SE aspect with nice riding conditions on terrain that wasn’t loaded or stripped by past few days of wind.

Avalanches: Saw numerous small wind slabs in extreme terrain on NW-N-NE facing, unsupported slopes in Baxter Basin, and below Schuykill Peak. Investigated largest, most significant slide in the area just north of Richmond Peak, in a feature some people call the “Martini Glass Coulior” or “chicken leg.” Looked like a few days old, natural avalanche triggered by rapid windloading. Ran over 1000ft. After investigation, looked like it failed on the Nov. 10th melt-freeze layer that formed from warm temperatures on this NE-SE facing start zone. ECT tests had no result. snowpack fairly deep here, 140-180cm deep, mostly 1F hard snow with moist facets near the ground (1-2mm).

Weather: Clear, cold throughout day. Light westerly winds above treeline all day. Solar radiation was strong enough to warm ourselves, but not to form surface crusts or moisten southerly snow surfaces.

Snowpack: Mixed bag.

BTL: Still thin, generally weak. Yesterdays dense 4″ of graupel added to lower elevations supportiveness while skinning and sledding. ski penetration ~20cm, never to ground unless in very shallow, rocky areas. HS ranged from 40-75cm.

N/ATL: Slab and snow depth increases with elevation. HS ranged from 65-150cm+. Strong NW winds last several days really moved and hardened snow above treeline, with 1F-P hard, slick slabs widepread on NE-E-SE-S facing slopes. Yesterdays graupel was being moved/rolled easily downslope with light winds, no slab formation within this most recent surface snow yet. Numerous large collapses felt and heard on flat areas NTL, but no signs of current instability ATL observed. Snowpack tests throughout day did not produce significant results, and moist facets near the ground were present everywhere we dug (NTL and ATL).

Avalanches: None
Weather: Clear, light to moderate WNW ridgetop winds. No snow transport
Snowpack: On S and SSE aspects above treeline: Snow surface remained dry. The 11/16 interface is a stout meltfreeze crust, 2-4cm thick, pencil hardness, across all terrain. Below the 11/16 crust is a 1.5mm fist hard facet layer, generally around 5cm thick. In some cases, there is another crust layer at the base. There is anywhere from 10 to 70 cm of recent, settled or drifted snow above the 11/16 crust. F to 4F in hardness, except in heavily drifted spots where it is 1F. In one pit location, we observed 1mm near surface facets above the 11/16 crust, and stability tests showed propagating results on this layer (ECTP12x2, Q1, 30cm deep). See video. We got a soft collapse near this pit location. A second pit location did not have these surface facets above the crust, and the recent snow appeared well-bonded. Stability tests showed sudden collapse results below the 11/16 crust in the facet layer. This crust was thick and strong enough that we did not get any collapses on it.

Avalanches: No natural avalanches observed despite good visibility into the Anthracites, the Ruby Range and Peeler Basin.
Snowpack: HS varied from 20-70cm with more scouring than loading from recent strong westerly and northerly winds near treeline. The snow surface was stiff and we dropped through some trap doors on the top pitch of 70 Gully but it was mostly soft and skied well elsewhere. I found a melt-freeze layer 5-10cm thick near the ground on most slopes, topped by 10-30cm of facets and then settled storm snow or wind slabs up to 30cm thick near the surface. We experienced lots of collapsing and some rumbling collapses extended up to 30m where the surface snow was stiffest near the top of 70 Gully.

Avalanches: Observed a small natural avalanche (R1D1.5) on SE face of Mineral Point from ridge-line but no other instabilities observed around the areas visible from Ridgeline.
Weather: 34F @ TH @ ~1245, consistent 10 – 15 mph wind from NW with gusts up to ~25. Mostly cloudy with pockets of sun. Blowing snow observed BTL where snow was still available for transport and managed to completely fill-in skin track from earlier in the day in several places.
Snowpack: HS of 45cm on protected, ~30 deg, NE facing slope near ridge of First Bowl. ~10cm of 4F windslab over ~20cm of 1mm F facets then 10cm of 2mm F facets and MFCR at the ground. This structure is fairly consistent across Coney’s with the wind slab generally increasing in thickness and firmness as the aspect rotates east (wind slab up to P hardness in areas). No instabilities observed and wind slab didn’t propagate much beyond skis. There are a couple of interfaces that will be important to note as load is added: 1) Wind Slab – Facet interface produced a clean break @ CT8 and 2) Facet – MFCR interface.

First Bowl skied quite well – doesn’t have much of a slab on top. Convex Corner has a stouter slab that makes for hooky turns. Ski light as it’s still quite thin.

Coneys-11.19.15

Avalanches: Observed two natural size 1-2 avalanches on southeast aspects above treeline. Both slides appeared to have occured in the last 24 hours and were the result of wind loading.

Weather: strong gusting winds out of the northwest. Intermittent spitting snow. Mid 20’s temp?
Snowpack: dense slab of new snow, some wind stiffened, on skin track on east to northeast aspects, some collapsing and whomphing. Hasty pit showed 8-10 inches of dense snow popping cleanly on the interface. Surprised to not see any avalanche activity in the zone, or get any reaction skiing though we mostly avoided 30+ degree slopes.

Avalanches: Good views of Gothic, Baldy, and Belleview. Looks like one recent crown on a NE aspect above treeline on Gothic, failing near the ground a foot or two deep. SS-N-R2-D1.5-O/G. Otherwise, no recent activity.
Weather: Broken to scattered cloud cover. Light winds at our elevation but plumes from NW winds off of 12k ft peaks. No precip.
Snowpack: HS averaged 40 cm below treeline. The bottom 5-10 cm is 1.5mm moist facets (F+), and above that is settled snow from recent storms (4F to F, rounds or DF’s). No signs of instability. As we approached near treeline elevations, snowdepth and structure became much more variable due to wind effects. Basal facets were dry, and in some places capped by low density recent snow or in others capped by dense wind drifted slabs up to 2 feet thick. These slabby areas were small and isolated in distribution. We observed some small collapses and cracks when crossing these windloaded pockets.