Location: Crested Butte Area Date of Observation: 01/15/2017 Name: Arden Feldman
Subject: Mt. Emmons Aspect: Elevation: B/N/ATL
Avalanches: No avalanches observed from Mt. Emmons other than D1 loose avalanches off of steep rocks and cliffs on most aspects and the same small slab avalanche on a SW aspect NTL observed in the obs titled “goooooood” from earlier today. Weather: Broken skies with some sun, calm winds even at ridgetop, S-1 snowfall late in the afternoon. Snowpack: No Instabilities noted. Dug down to the storm interface on a S aspect BTL. Found a right side up slab sitting on rounding facets with little to no sun crust at the interface. A minor sun crust was beginning to form at the surface on S aspects BTL when the sun disappeared behind clouds late in the afternoon.
Location: Cement Creek Area Date of Observation: 01/15/2017 Name: Ian Havlick, Evan Ross
Subject: Aspect: South, South West, West Elevation: 9,700-11,200
Avalanches:Â Found one D2 avalanche, likely ran Jan 10th, steep west facing slope associated with rock band. Weather: Calm winds. Overcast sky. Green housing and warm temperature warming the snow surface. Snowpack: Skiing in areas that on a normal winter don’t have enough snow to ski, are sweet, but may hold the most concerning snowpack at the moment. Lower cement creek had an HS in the 120 to 150cm range on westerly aspects. About 10cm of 3mm striated facets were F+ hard at the base of the snowpack. Above these large grained facets were another 20cm of 1-2mm faceted grains, with our January storm stacked on top. This concerning snowpack structure gave pause, due to the depth of the weak layer falling into the human triggered realm and overall just weak appearance. As you rolled into more southwesterly aspects the HS decreased and the snowpack transitioned with a potentially collapsable crust with 3mm facets below.
No collapses or obvious signs of instability felt while traveling in this terrain. Snowpack structure showed what is possible, lack of signs to instability showed the stubborn nature of the problem.
Quick assessment on a southerly facing 25 degrees slope showed the new years day interface down 90cm. That crust interface felt soft by probe. No obvious signs to instability again. Heavy borderline moist snow at the surface.
3mm striated grains F+ hard with a slab on top. Part of this slope had avalanched and cleaned out the weak layer while much of it hadn’t and the weak layer was preserved.
IMG_2073
Snowpack tapered from west to southwest. On southwest a potentially collapsible crust facet structure developed.
IMG_2071
In the foreground the Southwesterly facing part of the slope had and HS of 60cm with the collapsible crust structure. The middle of the slope had an HS of 150cm with F hard 3mm facets at the ground.
Location: Crested Butte Area Date of Observation: 01/15/2017 Name: Zach Guy
Subject: Finally some visibility Aspect: North East, East, South East, South, South West Elevation: 9,500 -12,400
Avalanches: Good visibility looking at northerly aspects of Scarp Ridge, Schuylkill Ridge, Coneys, and E/N aspects of Ruby Range. Flat light looking northeast towards the Elk Divide. Not much for fresh avalanche crowns (See photos). Saw one D3 on a NW aspect ATL of Scarp that failed near the end of the storm, and couple of other partially filled in crowns. Subtle evidence of some very large avalanches that ran sometime during the storm off of Gothic, but the crowns are completely gone now, so can’t classify the avalanches. U-N-R4-D3-U debris piles below the Spoon (S aspect), SW gulley, and Spork (SE aspect). The one below the Spork looked to be at least 20 feet deep (D3.5?), and was a couple hundred yards or less from hitting Gothic Road. This could have been the combined pile of multiple slides. From my vantage, I didn’t see any debris piles that ran R5 or max runouts. Weather: Thin broken clouds. Calm winds, mild temps. S-1 around sunset. Snowpack: HS on SW aspects NTL was variable, from 240 cm to less than 100cm. The New Year’s crust was generally 150-200 cm deep, easy to ID with probe. I targeted a thin spot to dig and found advanced depth hoar below the crust, CT SC results, but didn’t propagate in 2 ECTs because talus interrupted the continuity of the layer in that spot. On SE aspects ATL, I probed into two adjacent starting zones. One had HS of 300 cm, the other had HS of 150 cm. Although the crown was no longer visible the latter had clearly run sometime during the storm (probably on mid storm layers?) and you could see debris in the flats. I dug into that slope and found about 120 cm slab over 4F 1.5mm facets, still surprisingly unsintered. On Snodgrass (E/NE aspect BTL), HS was 280 cm in start zones. Snow surfaces became moist on southerly tilts at lower elevations, and formed a thin, soft crust. Traveled on various aspects with no signs of instability except shallow but long running sluffs.
East aspect NTL on Gothic. Looks like maybe a larger crown that was filled in, because I couldn’t make out the debris.
Far running debris (D3.5?) below SE face of Gothic, came within a few hundred yards of Gothic Road.
Long running debris below SW gulley of Gothic
Long running debris below mini spoon (S NTL)
Concerning structure/ suspect trigger point on SW aspect NTL.
Location: Crested Butte Area Date of Observation: 01/15/2017 Name: Andy
Subject: Down Valley Aspect: North East, East Elevation: 9,300
Avalanches: None observed from viewpoint. Weather: Light Fog, 25 degrees. No Wind. Snowpack: 20″-40″ Depth. Sun Crust forming from yesterday’s late sun on South faces. Very stiff HS all the way to large facets at the ground-snow interface. Lots of collapsing in the gullies and on ridges.
Location: Crested Butte Area Date of Observation: 01/16/2017
Subject: Goooooood Aspect: North, North East Elevation: atl,tl,btl
Avalanches: several sluffs out of south, northeast and north aspects. Small avalanche on southwest aspect (see photo)
sluffs ran a long ways (800-1000 feet) but never entrained lower snowpack. One sluff on northeast aspect even started in steeper terrain and rolled down the gut of a gully for 800 feet still moving on a pitch that was maybe 25 degrees Weather: overcast, zero wind even on ridge top Snowpack: ski pen 10-14″, surface hoar forming
Location: Crested Butte Area Date of Observation: 01/14/2017 Name: Peter Innes
Subject: Snodgrass/Gothic obs Aspect: North East, South West Elevation: 10,000′
Avalanches: None. Some buried debris faintly visible on E apron of Gothic Mt, but have not seen any obvious crowns. Weather: Light snow tapering to overcast w/ some brief cloud breaks causing gloppy snow Snowpack: SW aspect BTL (10,000′), 25º, above Gothic townsite: HS 200cm, right side up, ECTN
NE aspect BTL 10,000′), 32º, on Snodgrass: HS 250cm, right side up, ECTN
No sign of buried surface hoar in either profile. Did not dig to ground but snowpack was quite uniform and showed solid structure in both cases, with about 20cm F hardness on top of 4F and 3F down to ~150cm depth (did not dig past this).
In the NE profile, aggressive shovel shear following ECTN caused slab failure 100cm down but was Q3 shear at best…this poor shear may have been due to difficulty isolating the column at that depth though.
Location: Crested Butte Area Date of Observation: 01/14/2017 Name: Ian Havlick
Subject: Granite Creek and Round Mountain Aspect: North, West, North West Elevation: 9500-11800
Avalanches: lots of D1 wet loose sluffing in steep terrain, both natural and off ski turns.
observed a few partially buried crowns from earlier in week, visibility remained limited to get longer distance observation of bigger terrain. Weather: S2 snow tapered by 1130am, then overcast and fog, eventually clearing up to broken skies 1430. Winds were light to calm. temperatures increased from mid 20s to mid 30s by 1500. Snowpack: Generally solid and deep with HS averaging 120-150cm, increasing with elevation. Did find reactive 4mm SH and basal facets in profile 9800ft, protected meadow, where you’d expect to find surface hoar if it was gonna be there. CT12 on SH, and CT14 on basal facets.
Dug again on more northerly, near treeline meadow and found very rightside-up snowpack with density increasing with depth. Boot pen here was about 60cm. Most concerning place to trigger a slide is margins, and places made shallow by wind scouring.
Surface snow, upper 2″ that fell during morning had interesting preserved stellars that failed easily and produced surprisingly high-speed and pushy wet loose sluffing that was worth avoiding get hit by on descent.
Location: Cement Creek Area Date of Observation: 01/14/2017 Name: ADB
Subject: Aspect: South, South West Elevation: BTL
Avalanches: Observed numerous loose snow slides below every rock outcrop and cliff on 1/13 on south/SE/SW slopes. Observed one W/SW slope near Deadman CG where entire slope was covered with loose snow slides.
on 1/14, started a slough on S/SW slope that ran about 500 feet.
None of these releases would injure someone. Some may partially bury you if caught on the road. Weather: Obscured skies and calm transitioning to mostly cloudy. Snowpack: new snow: 2.5 cm (1 inch)/24 hours and 17.5 to 22.5 cm (5 to 7 inches)/48 hours on SW aspects, two sun crusts in upper 7.5 cm of pack.
Location: Kebler Pass Area Date of Observation: 01/14/2017 Name: Zach Guy
Subject: Sluffing and soft slab at Irwin Aspect: South East, South, West Elevation: 10,000-11,800 ft
Avalanches: Widespread, shallow sluffing (L-AS/N-R1-D1-S) on slopes steeper than ~38 degrees, all aspects. Skier triggered soft slab on west aspect NTL, ~15″ deep, failed on precip particles. (SS-AS-R1-D1.5-S) Weather: S-1 to S1 and overcast most of the day. Calm winds. High of 34 in the afternoon, and brief solar breaks with greenhouse affect. Snowpack:Â 3″ last night, 2″ today. Low density, new snow became more cohesive due to green housing in the afternoon.
Hand shots and airblasts in previously trafficked and/or mitigated terrain produced no results
