Avalanches: None observed.
Weather: Sunny and calm.
Snowpack: No current signs of instability on north aspect below tree line. Southern aspects began to shed snow as exposed rocks and cliff-bands heated up. We did experience a number of sluffs on steeper terrain. Some were large enough to move a skier.

Avalanches: Investigated the skier triggered persistent slab avalanche in Red Lady Bowl, triggered 12/18/16 at approximately 3:30 pm.   The slab was mostly all 1F in hardness, or a hard slab. The avalanche was unintentionally triggered by skier, from what appeared to be a shallow, rocky part of the slope. The crown on the skier’s right side ranged from 200 cm to 30 cm in height, averaging approximately 150 cm. We did not go to the crown on the skier’s left side, but it appeared to average about 100 cm in thickness. Based on Google Earth measurements, the skier’s right crown is 200 feet wide and the skier’s left crown is 1,500 feet wide. The debris ran 3,600 feet and a vertical fall of 1,500 feet. The avalanche was medium relative to its potential extent. The debris snapped numerous small to medium sized trees in the runout, and was large enough destroy a car.   It failed in old, faceted snow and ran on the ground. The avalanche is classified as HS-ASu-R3-D3-O/G
Weather:
Snowpack: Our crown profile was 142 cm deep. The failure layer is 2 – 2.5 mm facets/rounding facets at the ground, F+ in hardness. The slab at that location is 132 cm, mostly all .2 to .3mm 1F rounds. We did not identify a crust layer at this particular spot.

Failure layer was a weak, old layer of facets and rounding facets. F+ hard, 2 – 2.5 mm in size.

The track of the skier who triggered the slide is on the lookers right side.

Extent of debris.

Looking northeast across the bowl.

The crown was up to 6 feet deep.

Looking down the slide path from the crown.

Looking up at the crown. Person for scale.

Crown profile.

More photos courtesy of Ben Pritchett

Avalanches: See photos. Got a humbling reminder that avalanche crowns are always bigger in person than viewed from afar, and I underestimated the size of some crowns in previous obs. The crown(s) in Redwell and the Shield are up to 8 feet thick (pencil hard slab over 1mm facets, 4F+ to 1F-). Debris ran impressively far into Redwell Basin. HS-N-R3-D3-O. The slide in Climax Chutes ran nearly full track to the valley and snapped trees. SS-N-R3-D3-O. The Red Lady crown is up to 6 feet thick. Report to come. Observed a dozen or more loose snow avalanches that ran naturally on sunny aspects today or yesterday, triggered by solar/warming. Mostly D1 to D1.5 in size.
Weather: Light winds, few clouds, mild temps.
Snowpack: We descended a NE slope above treeline that had flushed during the cycle with no signs of instability. These slopes now have thin snow coverage that will likely facet out again, making for greater variability in the alpine and some repeat offenders.
Dug two pits below treeline on NE aspects, one above a crown in Washington Gulch and one in Oh-Be-Joyful Basin. The crown profile showed, hard non-propagating results (ECTN25, BRK) on 4F facets near the ground.  The other showed hard, propagating results (ECTP27, SC) on F+ facets near the ground. Both slabs were about 80 cm thick.

Previously unobserved debris off of the west face of Gothic. Couldn’t make out a crown.

Redwell Basin Crown.

Crown above “The Shield” was up to 8 feet thick, pencil hard.

Debris from Redwell Basin slides reached the point where I took this photo from.

Observed a number of fresh loose snow avalanches today. And there is also a crown from the last avy cycle in this shot.

NE aspect BTL. ECTP27, SC on F+basal facets.

Extent of debris below Climax Chutes.

Avalanches:
Weather: Cold! -11*C (12*F) @ 11,000′ ~ 2pm, Winds L, variable in glades with MOD blowing snow at ridge top.
Snowpack: Did not observe any avalanches (until we got back to town and saw the large avalanche in Red Lady Bowl).
No cracking, but our team produced 2 moderate collapses (~100′) in open meadows on SE aspects ~10,500′ and higher. No results from stomping on several test slopes. HS 90-120cm, HST 65-90cm

We dug a snow profile on a 15* slope on a SE-facing meadow at 10,800′ with HS 105cm, PF 40cm and PS 15cm to see how the snowpack was reacting to the massive new load:

Persistent slabs still problematic, especially in shallow areas: We were not able to initiate fractures by tapping on small and large columns with the full load on them (CTN and ECTX), but the snowpack showed potential for propagation when closely investigated with other snowpack tests. DTM SC and PST (End) 35/100 down 90cm on 1mm facets. Spooky!

Storms instabilities appear to be healing: we found 2 interfaces within the fist hard storm snow (2mm stellars down 25cm and 2mm graupel down 35cm), but no sudden results in CTs or positive results from ECTs.

Probing showed that the persistent slab structure is widespread in this area, but we found fast and soft skiing on low angle slopes no steeper than 30 degrees without incident.

Avalanches: only past activity
Weather: beautiful
Snowpack: no signs of instability. was on top emmons, making final prep to ski bowl, noticed group of 5 skiers below on ridge. next time i looked up there were only 2 and 1 coming up towards top.. i could only assume other 2 had entered bowl below me, as i could not see them. i decided to avoid this group and ski south side. great pow, no one skiing in under me. great day!

Avalanches: Numerous from past weekends natural cycle which were partially filled in. no real recent activity in past 24hrs.
Weather: Cold air temps with generally calm air. Did notice on rare occasion small amounts of transport on highest most exposed terrain.
Snowpack: While traveling mostly on Northeasterly terrain I found the ski pen around 15 cm and boot pet around 40cm. Snow surface appears to be faceting from cold clear nights. Riding conditions were very supportive. Acended existing ski track but got off track numerous times in undisturbed snow and jumped vigoursouly without any noticeable collapsing.
At one location 10,100, ENE, 30*, open meadow in gladed terrain with minimal wind impact, I found an HS of 140cm. Test results were ECTx, x, N Brk at 88cm from ground on what appeared to be graupel/rimed particles. Whille conducting profile I was able to still identify buried NSF (likely dec. 6th) and two different graupel/rimed particle layers from recent snows. Although I didn’t get results on these layers during test, I was able to smash the column on ground producing planer fractures on the above mentioned layers.

Avalanches: 2 natural avalanches observed (see photos), east facing. Did not dig to check interface but suspect they may have run on crust layer.
#1: 11,200′, 40 – 50 cm crown; ~35*; 150’w x 250′; R2-D1.5 (likely ran mid-storm)
#2: 10,800′, 40 – 60 cm crown, ~40*; 250’w x 200′; R2 – D2 (fresher crown, likely ran at end of storm)

Got one, small localized collapse in open meadow at ~10,000′. Took inserting tail of my ski thru storm slab to get the result.
Weather: Clear, Cold
Temp: 8F @ TH @ ~1030; slight inversion
Winds: Calm, slight upslope winds on occasion
Snowpack: Ski Pen: 10cm – 20cm
Highly variable snowpack depth with slab from weekend storm present at all elevations and aspects (E-SE) during tour and consistently supportable. Storm slab frequently sat on top of a sun crust in exposed areas higher in elevation – will be a good interface to observe. Coverage was adequate except some of the most wind exposed areas with no “ground” encounters while skiing.

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Avalanches: Plenty of natural avalanches to be viewed on Sunday, all that released during the recent large loading event. All had started filling back in or were viewed from to far to correctly code. Of note, vary large slab on the SE bowl of Bellview, numerous slabs on the east face of Gothic, large and far running slab in the Spork or SE bowl of Gothic, Slab on the SE bowl of the White Massive, several slabs below treeline on northeastern aspects of Snodgrass.
Weather: Saturday: Mostly cloudy and freezing cold. Sunday: Mostly clear and freaking cold. Few strong gusts in the valleys on Saturday and calm winds on Sunday.
Snowpack: Saturday:
Toured on small slopes near the valley bottom. Snowpack structure didn’t chance much from east facing to west facing, 2mm acted grains on average near the ground 10-20cm thick. Some intresteing thin strips of faceted polycrals? in there to mix things up. Maybe from an early season rain event or previous moist facets. Never the less some good collapses and shooting cracks on this layer while traveling on slopes less then 31 degrees.

Sunday:
Low elevation snodgrass tour, on slopes less then 33 degrees. Similar structure as the previous day. No obvious signs to instability. Conditions felt more stubborn.

Debris above Gothic Road from a large slab in the Spork or SE bowls of Gothic.

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Bellview crown conceted via multiple aspects and elevations.

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Numerous slabs and crowns on the eastern side of Gothic. All being filled back in and currently discrete without zooming in.

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Shooting cracks on a SW facing slope in the Gothic valley.

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Avalanches: See photos. Plenty of evidence of widespread natural avalanche cycle that ended Saturday morning. The most widespread activity was above treeline on leeward or crossloaded slopes, ranging from D2 to D3 in size. Most of the “frequent flyers” below treeline (Happy Chutes, Gibson Ridge, Meridian Lake, etc) held tight except for smaller storm slab action.
Weather: Cold, clear, calm.
Snowpack: 40 cm of F+ storm snow below treeline on SW aspect, on a thin crust. Easy, propagating test results on a mid-storm density difference. We got a few minor collapses while breaking trail below treeline, and one large collapse as we reached more of a near treeline elevation at ~11,000 ft.

Climax Chutes. NE aspect NTL.

Scarp Ridge. NE aspect ATL

Wolverine Basin. NE aspect ATL

Mt. Axtell. NE aspect ATL

Gothic Peak. SSW aspect ATL

Mt. Baldy. SE aspect ATL

Coon Basin. SE aspect ATL

Washington Gulch. E aspect BTL. Snowplow triggered?

Nordic hill. NE aspect (skier triggered?)

Skier triggered slide on Red Lady Bowl. SE aspect ATL

SW aspect BTL.

Redwell Basin. N/NE aspects ATL

Purple Peak. East aspect ATL

Purple Ridge and Purple Peak. NE aspects ATL

Schuylkill Peak. NE aspect ATL.