Avalanches: numerous cracking and shallow windslabs. one natural overnight in Sonic from heavy wind loading, D1, 12″ deep, 30′ wide. Explosive work did not produce significant results, despite large shots (5-12£)
Weather: Heavy snow at times during morning, gradually tapering after lunch, but still moderate snow showers. West winds 20 G60, especially in afternoon, cold temperatures with highs at ridge barely reaching 10Âo and temps at 10k topping out at 19Âo.
Snowpack: Storm total as of 1500 sits at 18″ with 1.5″ SWE. 9% density overnight, with slightly lighter snow today, created widespread slow stuffing in terrain steeper than 33Âo, shallow windslabs developing with ideal westerly winds blowing 20 G 50. New snow is variable across terrain due to wind, some places scoured to crust, others 3ft deep. BTL, snow is uniform and deep, with ski pen 30-40cm.

photo on drive down Kebler of North facing Coal Creek.  Suspected surface hoar near creek bottom.  notice no fracture very close to trees, no surface hoar development there due to constant longwave radiation.

Avalanches:
Weather: Strong, steady wind until nearly 3 a.m. with driven, dense snow. Wind becomes light as snow picks up though still dense with 4½” new by 5:30 a.m. and water of 0.53″ (water is from instrumentation not official but probably very close). Snowpack back to 89½”, just 1½” below winters deepest. A nasty night, nasty morning and nasty winter (these views are those of the Gothic weather station and in no way reflect those of the greater CB area- even if they are correct).

Currently moderate snow and light, steady SW wind with obscured cloud cover. Temp. overnight ranging only from 22 to the current 19ºF. billy
Snowpack:

Avalanches: Remotely triggered a cornice break skier’s left side of Yogi’s that triggered a small soft slab avalanche 12+ inches deep. Skier triggered a few small pockets on isolated convexities. Some sloughing, that toward the end of the day was exhibiting almost soft slab-like movement.
Weather: Strong SW wind (30+ mph) and snowing.
Snowpack: 12+ inches of soft, non-cohesive snow becoming noticeably more cohesive over the course of the day. Skied Snakey, Thanksgiving Bowl and Birthday Bowl. Massive cornices along the entire ridge due to several days of strong W & SW winds. Amazing skiing with particular caution at the wind-loaded entrances. Snowfall and winds were increasing as the day progressed, and I expect these slopes to be touchy in the days ahead.

Avalanches: Investigated the crown profile of a human triggered avalanche on 2/26. Test results below. Bed surface averaged 37 degrees and crown averaged 14 inches thick breaking into old snow layers. Debris looked to be D1.5 in size. Could have been larger if the terrain was bigger.

After an additional 4″ of new snow, a ski cut on the skiers left flank propagated another soft slab an additional 240ft wide across the rest of the 37 to 40 degree slope.
Weather: Overcast sky in CB became obscured by S-1 snowfall heading out to Pittsburgh at 10am. snowfall picked up to S2 just after noon and continued as we headed home about 2pm. Light and variable winds below treeline with some stronger gusts.
Snowpack: 10 to 14″ of snow has accumulated during the last week over two different NSF interfaces. 2″ were added last night with another 2″ added by 2pm. These NSF layers are each capped by slightly firmer NSF grains (half step hand hardness). Probably from a temporary period of warming before getting buried. The NSF grains are .5 to 1mm in size and 3 to 6cm’s thick, with weak fist hardness.

Basically no obvious signs to instability while up tracking on slopes up to 37 degrees in steepness, with the current slab being so soft. Hand pits produced sheers at the upper NSF interface. Crown profile had an ECTP 15 SC on the upper NSF and an ECTPN on the lower NSF interface which was the weak layer in this human triggered avalanche.

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Avalanches: D2 South Owen, D1.5 West Col between Ruby and Owen, D2 NE Owen, D2 E Scarps

D2 Bender: SS-R1-D2-AB-I 38* Wind loaded crown 30cm -70cm deep, flank ~20cms. HST sitting on MFcr (K) very thick. Under the cliffs, stepped down again to crust , cleaning out AM Snow Safety tracks.
Weather: CLR, 0 degrees at Ridgetop 1200. Clouds building in the pm. Increasing winds transporting snow throughout the day. COLD!
Snowpack: The Crust/Facet/Crust combo is much closer on Southerly slopes, crusts separated by 1-2 cms. Further West the separation between crust layers increases to +15cms. Crusts on Western terrain are buried up to 40cms deep. Two collapses in the flats below Swill/Bender. No Cracking East or West. Barker marker basin pit on collapse site: SC 44cm down of FC (very thin layer of F-hard 1mm) just above lower MFcr. Layer above is 4F FC then the top MFcr. The storm snow slab is ~35cm deep of 4f to F on surface.

Natural D2 on South Face Owen

Owen

Explosive triggered D2 Bender: SS-R1-D2-AB-I 38*

Bender

Avalanches:
Weather: Mostly clear sky became partly cloudy in the afternoon. We were mostly protected from winds, but they certainly picked up int the afternoon with plums off the high peaks and swirling snow in the glades above 10,500.
Snowpack: Didn’t travel in avalanche terrain. About 15cm’s of new snow from the last week. At 10,800ft on a south facing 30 degree slope the crust below the most recent snows was stout. On lower angled slopes at 11,200ft the crust facet sandwich was there, but not as concerning looking as seen in other places.

Kicked a cornice off low on coon ridge. It slid down to below the windload and released a small 20ft wide soft slab, 25cms deep, probably on the buried near surface facets. The weakness is there, just needs more of a slab to propagate.

Avalanches: Unintentional skier triggered 8-10″ soft slab on crust (storm snow/wind affected?) breaking on 30+ degree rollover below treeline. Propagated ~60 feet across and slowly ran down slope behind skier ~300′ before stopping on bench. East/Northeast facing slope to skiers right of Pittsburg proper.
Weather: Cold, sunny most of day with light clouds moving in midafternoon, light wind with stronger gusts visible transporting snow above treeline, no precipitation.
Snowpack: Boottop creamy snow skied great.

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Avalanches:
Weather: Mostly clear skies throughout the day with all surrounding mountains shrouded at some point during the day. No new precip. Cold! Strong winds out of the west and channeling through lower gullies.
Snowpack: Snow on southern aspects was settling fast with today’s strong radiation. The strong winds were moving lots of snow, but much of seemed to sublimate into the atmosphere, rather than load particular slopes. All aspects of Redwell were being wind hardened as the wind was blowing straight up the valley. The slab was stiffening as the day progressed. We saw no signs of instabilities.

Avalanches: Fresh, 2-4 foot deep windslab, naturally failing this morning on E-facing, Purple Ridge. Wide propagation, ~150ft wide? 11,600ft. D2.

Another smaller natural windslab failure on Schuykill Ridgeline, D1.
Weather: Scattered clouds, building mid day. NW winds increased during tour, 20-30 G40. Temperatures were cold, wildchills bitter. Temp on car at TH at 1000 was 2ºF. No precipitation.
Snowpack: Snow from last 3 days ranged from 6-36″ deep, heavily wind effected above treeline. Most terrain above treeline where I travelled was stripped clean to suncrusts and slick windboard. In lee and crossloaded sides of bowls and gullies the new snow was drifted up to 3ft deep.

Concerning Crust/facet/crust sandwich on all southerly slopes I travelled today, with numerous large collapses on 20-30º S-SW facing slopes. Dug two pits, revealed solid crust, 2-3mm facets, then another, more friable, fragile crust above holding the well bonded new snow. ECP6 SP on pit dug on steep, loaded bowl on Baldy. Needs more load, but could produce widely propagating slides in future.

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Avalanches:
Weather: Cold. -11 in the valley. Light winds, no observed minimal blowing snow but mainly traveled in protected areas. Mostly cloudy sky became overcast to obscured with intermittent S1 snowfall through the day. Localized winds blowing upslope (from E/NE) in the afternoon.
Snowpack: HS of 250-300cms throughout the tour! Boot pen 40 cms ski pen 15 cms. Good supportive snowpack. Test profiles at 10,500 and 11,000 showed buried surface hoar (Jan 19) 85 cms down, laying flat, rounding and unreactive to tests including pulling hard in shovel shears. Buried NSFs found 45 cms down. Suspecting this is due to melt layer crystallization from new snow over wet surface when it started snowing (2/22). This layer was more concerning but still had inconsistent test results, likely due to the lack of overlying slab. This wind is working on building that slab though. Lighter density snow in the trees near the ridgetop become slightly more slabby at mid-elevation where the wind had more effect. Below 10,000 where the trees clear out the powder skiing turned variable with breakable wind and sun crusts.

No avalanche activity noted, nor any cracking or collapsing.