Avalanches: None.
Weather: Thin clouds increased through the day. High of 45/24. SW winds 20-25mph, gusting to 45.
Snowpack: Upper 5-10 cm became wet at lower elevations by PM. Began to refreeze around 3p.m.

Avalanches: large cornice fall NE aspect, Mid size wet/dry loose slides on southerly’s aspects all in Redwell Basin
Weather: Clear with hint of hays from the west (dust), hot in the lower to mid elevations with, increasing moderate winds with strong gusts out for the NW.
Snowpack: The wind has affected most slopes W-NW-E NTL and ATL with wind board, textured and sustrugi snow surfaces. NE facing slope at 10,500ft HS 190cm with F hardness 30-40cm down to a faceted interface 4F to 1F blow. It looked as though the weak persisting slab structure has faceted out. Strong solar on S-SE slopes had produced roller balls from hot temp the day prier. No other instabilities with observed.

Avalanches: numerous D1 wet loose on SE-S-SW facing slopes.
Weather: clear, 20mph westerly breeze at ridgetop kept ambient temp feeling cold, but strong solar and temps softened all but due north
Snowpack: Did not dig, but all but northerly snow surfaces became moist with temperatures and solar. Snow grains are transforming to granular corn where previous winds last week kept new snow from acccumulating. New snow still has a few more days of freeze/thaw before proper corn develops on e-S-W facing terrain. On shady northerly slopes, surface snow has faceted 20-40cm but underlying snow reamins slabby above facets.

Avalanches: Observed about 20 skier triggered and natural wet loose avalanches, mostly D1 to D1.5 in size, although a couple were large enough to bury someone. These were primarily on steep and windsheltered E to SE to S aspects NTL. It seems higher elevations got so blasted by winds that the surface was too dense or crusted for wet concerns under today’s weather. See photos.
Weather: Warm, few/scattered thin clouds. Light winds.
Snowpack: On SE to S aspects NTL, there was 3″ to 10″ of very wet to slushy snow over a firm frozen crust, sliding easily steep slopes.
A pit on a NE aspect NTL showed a mix of hard propagating and non-propagating results on facets below a crust about a foot deep. (ECTP22, ECTN x 3, PST 80/100 END). Above treeline, it looked like a number of suspect northeasterly slopes saw some amount of persistent slab scouring during the recent extreme wind event.

Skier triggered “slub” in action.

D1.5’s. SE aspect NTL

D2 SE aspect NTL.

S aspect NTL. Slow moving skier triggered wet loose avalanches, D1.5. Some failed with a little slab-like propagation.

NE aspect ATL. Old persistent slab crown visible in the shadows. Note the slab erosion textures across much of the face.

D1.5 SE aspect NTL

Mix of non and propagating results on buried faceted crust 30 cm deep. PST 80/100 END shown here.

D1.5, S aspect NTL.

Avalanches:
Weather: hot again…sorta. Warm on the South facing skin track with light breeze until 11,000. Temps in the upper 20’s with strong solar under clear skis. Above 11,000 there was a strong N wind blowing up to 50 MPH at 12,000.
Snowpack: 2 cms of new snow from surprise snow squall last night over semi-supportive wind and sun crust. Posed some gloppy skin issues going from sun to shade in the trees. Above TL the new snow added to previous wind loaded slopes, but isolated to right at/below ridge line. All aspects from N-NE-E-SE where open and less treed looked blown out, wind jacked with raised tracks in area viewed. Below new wind load (hundred feet below ridge line) quickly transitioned to wind buff, slightly breakable almost but not quite chalky. Lots of sustrugi everywhere.

Skinning up a more sheltered South facing slope at 11,000 the new skiff was moist and sun crust below was wet. Wetness did not go below the old 4 cm thick crust.

Steep N facing below treeline maintained dry snow, and faceting was evident. Some areas even felt a bit “trap door” and punchy, but this was not consistent.

Avalanches: Small D1 wet loose on the east face of gothic, small sluffing on N-NE aspects.
Weather: Clear and HOT with a light breeze out of the NW
Snowpack: The persistent slab structure was found on N-NE terrain at 10,500ft. A quick pit reveled hand hardness of F20cm 4F30cm 1F30cm HS230cm. A 1.5mm faceted interface 40cm down was tested by a compression test resulting in CTH22Q2. Another layer of concern was found 90cm down while doing a shovel sheer. It had lots of resistance but came out as planer with 2mm rounding facets. N-NE faces stayed dry while E faces warmed up and started to crust up around 3:30pm, Surface Hoar was present in protected slopes and shaded terrain. No other instability’s were observed.

Avalanches: observed natural slide ~1-2 days old; NE aspect; 10500′; D1, R1; crown roughly 150′, running 200m

triggered after rollover about 2/3rds down coneys right. 10200′, D1.5, R1.5, AS, windslab broke on near surface facets; 20′ deep 100′ wide crown, running 100m, 35-36 degree slope
Weather: Clear; moderate winds out of the NW; temps around 3 degrees C
Snowpack: snowpit on similar aspect and elevation yielded CTM (7, SP), breaking on buried SH interface. HS observed at 260cm
Coneys ridgeline heavily wind affected; observed sastrugi and loading throughout N-NE aspects.

avalanche-2

avalanche-1

avalanche-3

Avalanches:
Weather: Mostly clear. Generally calm to light winds, with some very strong westerly gusts at Ridgeline.
Snowpack: South and west facing slopes were mostly blown back to old snow surfaces with plenty of wind jack. Easterly and Northerly slopes were either very wind effected, wind pressed, or wind loaded by the last extreme wind event. Snow surfaces on these aspects depended on the sounding topography and how the winds had come through the area.

The most concerning structure we looked at was on a northeasterly slope at 12,500ft with wind deposited and pressed snow over 4f to 4f- near surface .facets. Lots of variability in the new or old snow surfaces. Avoided a few wind loaded terrain features, otherwise no other obvious signs to instability noted.

Snow quality was better on the Crested Butte side of the Elks then the Aspen side:}

Avalanches: No signs of instability except some very minor rollerballs at lower elevations, not enough fresh snow to start wet loose avalanches.
Weather: Few clouds. Light to moderate winds at ridgetop.
Snowpack: 1-2″ of dense, wind-affected recent snow over old crusts, windboard, etc. We found a couple of isolated drifts up to 12″ thick, but otherwise not much for recent windloading.

Avalanches: No signs of instability near or below treeline.
Weather: Decreasing winds through the day. Few clouds.
Snowpack: A few inches of new snow. Traveled in gullies, leeward ridgelines, and other suspect features for wind loading N/BTL and drifts were negligible; less than 3″ deep. It appears the extreme winds blew more snow away than loaded it. In areas where we did encounter thin drifts, it was easy to produce cracking, indicating poor bonding.
Investigated the PS structure NTL. On SE aspects, there was a ~3cm crust capping a faceting slab (~30 cm) over the crust facet layer, and this structure appeared to be non-concerning where we traveled. On an E aspect, several crust/facet layers were buried 40 cm deep, and produced non-propagating, broken fractures under hard initiation (ECTN 25 BRK).