-ZG
Fresh persistent slab in Red Lady Bowl
Location: Crested Butte and Kebler Pass Areas
Date of Observation: 03/04/2017
Name: Zach Guy
Date of Observation: 03/04/2017
Name: Zach Guy
Subject: Fresh persistent slab in Red Lady Bowl
Aspect: South East
Elevation: Near treeline
Aspect: South East
Elevation: Near treeline
Avalanches: Fresh slab avalanche in Red Lady Bowl; first noticed the crown early this morning so I assume it was human triggered yesterday. It ran the full width of a relatively small feature mid-track in the bowl (SE aspect NTL), estimated 700 feet wide, 100 vertical, and 2 feet deep. SS-U-R1-D1.5-O
Weather: Strong SW winds. Few clouds. Temps rose into the 30’s.
Snowpack: Surface warming was minimal today on high elevation southerly aspects due to the strong winds, so no wet avalanche concerns where we traveled.
Mt. Emmons
Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 03/03/2017
Name: Donny
Date of Observation: 03/03/2017
Name: Donny
Subject: Mt. Emmons
Aspect: North
Elevation: 9,000’ to 11,400′
Aspect: North
Elevation: 9,000’ to 11,400′
Avalanches:
Weather: Clear, calm, and temps that got close to 0ºC.
Snowpack: Avg SkiPen: 10cm – Avg BootPen: 30cm. North aspects stayed cold and dry. Upper 15cm is faceting. No signs of instabilities.
Snodgrass
Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 03/03/2017
Name:
Date of Observation: 03/03/2017
Name:
Subject: Snodgrass
Aspect: East
Elevation: BTL
Aspect: East
Elevation: BTL
Avalanches: Heavy loose snow slides at the bottom of Snodgrass’s 2nd bowl gully. 8″ of non cohesive snow broke loose and slid frequently on the previous windload from the evening before. This was mid day and exposed to sun most of the morning causing some pretty rapid snow changes.
Weather:
Snowpack:
20170303_075137-001D2 in Evan’s Basin
Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 03/03/2017
Name: Jeff Banks
Date of Observation: 03/03/2017
Name: Jeff Banks
Subject:
Aspect: East
Elevation: NTL
Aspect: East
Elevation: NTL
Avalanches: observed a new D2 east facing, steep ~40* below main ridge (no cornice) snowmobile triggered? tracks at the base. Did not see it yesterday when I spotted these slides pictured below. Here’s shots from the day before & another ~D1.5 that was hard to see
Weather:
Snowpack: Numerous small to medium collapses on windward side of ridge above Indy Basin on low angle terrain
image1
image2Small wet loose
Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 03/04/2017
Name: Zach Guy
Date of Observation: 03/04/2017
Name: Zach Guy
Subject: Small wet loose
Aspect: East, South, West
Elevation: 9,000 – 12,500
Aspect: East, South, West
Elevation: 9,000 – 12,500
Avalanches: Small (D1) wet loose avalanches ran on E, S, and W aspects, all elevations. These all originated from steep, rocky areas and didn’t run very far.
Weather:
Snowpack:
minimal issues BTL SE,E
Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 03/03/2017
Name: Evan Ross
Date of Observation: 03/03/2017
Name: Evan Ross
Subject: minimal issues BTL SE,E
Aspect: East, South East
Elevation: 9,300’ to 10,600′
Aspect: East, South East
Elevation: 9,300’ to 10,600′
Avalanches:
Weather: Clear, calm, strong solar.
Snowpack: On most slopes not much for concerning structure. Either hot-pow over old snow surfaces that could have been pulled out as a loose wet avalanche on steep slopes, or a faceting soft slab on protected east aspects over old snow surfaces. Wind loading on the right slope over some of the weak old snow surfaces would have been key to find a more significant avalanche problem in this area. This snow surfaces will be crusty tomorrow morning before the next round of warming.
Schuylkill slides
Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 03/02/2017
Name: Mike Nolan
Date of Observation: 03/02/2017
Name: Mike Nolan
Subject: Schuylkill slides
Aspect: North East, East
Elevation: NTL
Aspect: North East, East
Elevation: NTL
Avalanches: See photos of previous natural avalanche activity
Weather:
Snowpack:
skook2
skookTriggered slides on Emmons
Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 03/03/2017
Name: Steve n Mike
Date of Observation: 03/03/2017
Name: Steve n Mike
Subject: Triggered slides on Emmons
Aspect:
Elevation:
Aspect:
Elevation:
Avalanches: Triggered 2 persistent slabs today.
1 on the skiers right side of Coon Basin with a large cornice drop. D1 15m wide running about 200 vertical. Crown looked up to 30 cms deep.
SS-AC-R1-D1-O
1 on a steep (38) roll on the North ridge of Emmons separating Coon and Redwell. Kind of a random spot. Heavily wind loaded, triggered on a ski cut. Surprisingly deep given the terrain. 75m wide running 200 vertical. Crown up to 70 cms deep. Pencil hard chunks of debris.
HS-ASc-R3-D1.5-O
Saw many more old crowns from Tuesday’s cycle including skiers right side of Red Lady, Pencil Chute, Wolverine, East side of Scarp Ridge, and others. From the Coon/RLB saddle there was slides to the NE and SW sides. Wind loading seemed confused and contradictory.
Weather: unny! Warm on the skin track but overall still below freezing temps. Light winds until the Alpine zone, then light ENE winds.
Snowpack: Ski Pen of 15 cms in what became hot pow on South slopes. Above treeline the snow stayed dry and was wind packed on the ridges. Zipper crust by afternoon on cooling S and SE slopes about 2 cms thick with dry snow below. Persistent slab structure obvious with the new snow (0-45 cms depending on wind transport) over buried NSF. Shady N-NE low angle slopes still holding cold snow which is faceting and even a bit slow moving.
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unnamed-6Coney’s
Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 03/02/2017
Name: Will Nunez
Date of Observation: 03/02/2017
Name: Will Nunez
Subject: Coney’s
Aspect: North East, East
Elevation: 9,000-11,000
Aspect: North East, East
Elevation: 9,000-11,000
Avalanches: Large remote triggered D1.5 on SE aspect on a steep convex roll. Other avalanches were observed up slate river N-E.
Weather: It was as clear as a bluebird day can get with temps in the low to mid 30*F Wind Calm to light on the ridgeline out of the west.
Snowpack: Touchy!! Signs of instabilities started to be noticeable at 10,500ft with large loud whumpfing and collapsing. The overnight cold temp produced small SH growth in the valley and protected areas up to 11,000ft. The new snow has started to stiffen to 4F with area of wind board ranging from 2-5” thick HS ranged for 300-250cm. Testing the snowpack to check the old snows interface for NSH resulted in CTM19Q1 30cm down on NSH East 10,000ft. Other instabilities were large checking on the downhill sides of multiple trees. See Photos
CTM19Q1
Steep-Convex-Roll-D1.5
Tree-Cracking