Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 03/02/2019
Name: billy bar

Subject: Gothic 7am Report

Weather: Light to moderate snow Friday until stopping mid afternoon. Then starting up around sunset light to moderate before becoming off and on around midnight. A warm, dense snow with 10″ new and water content of 0.85″. Warm with the temperature range from 25-30F. Currently obscured with moderate to strong W wind and light snowfall at 28F. Snowpack is at winters deepest of 71½”.

Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 03/02/2019
Name: Irwin Cat Operation

Subject: Irwin Cat OperationCat Operation

Weather: Low cloud layer and strong SSW gusts kept visibility to a minimum, difficult visibility kept us off the higher elevation drops all morning. S5 snowfall rates all morning. We picked up another 10″ on the
H2D by 12:30. And although it is gusting, I believe those are real time totals. Precip ended around 1300 and skies were OVC.

We picked up HST 15 with 1.55″ SWE since 2/28. Felt maritime. 10″ from 8:00-12:00pm

Snowpack: Ski pen averaged 15cm. Only observations were underfoot as there was no surrounding visibility. Snow came in high density. At some point, probably early AM there was a graupel event and can see those “ball bearings” on the 2/28 crust, in some places they rolled down into the convexities, and can only detect in hand shears after digging below storm slab. Surprisingly minimal cracking or sloughing. The winds have been raging though and I believe we will see this slab stiffen up sooner then later. NTL/BTL West and protected south still had good ski pen, Exposed south was minimal, 5cms or so.

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 03/01/2019
Name: Evan Ross

Subject: ~12″ HST, Loose Snow And Soft Slab Avalanches. Axtell
Aspect: North, East
Elevation: 9,500-11,500

Avalanches:

The 12″ soft slabs triggered on easterly aspects and sluffing on northerly aspects were mostly in the D1.5 range. The two D2’s that were ski cut today where both on easterly aspects, with 12″ crowns and 20-40ft in width, accumulating volume as they ran far through steep terrain.

Weather: Great pulse of snow between about 9:30am and noon. During that same time westerly winds were transporting snow onto lee terrain feathers. The afternoon was quiet, snow turned off and winds eased in this location.

Snowpack: HST was sitting around 12″. This new snow was sluffing in the steep 40 degree terrain we traveled. There was very little to no propagation as a slab on northerly aspects where the new snow was sitting above some small NSF. The new snow was sitting on crusts on more easterly terrain, and here ski cuts produced soft slabs at the interface generally up to 20ft in with.

The terrain we traveled included the near treeline elevation and lee aspects. There was some wind loading but this area was generally sheltered from the active wind-loading out there today.

Photos:

Easterly Aspect at 11,400ft. Ski cut triggered 12″ soft slab running on the 2/28 crust.

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 03/01/2019

Subject: Snodgrass Lower Slopes
Aspect: North East, East
Elevation: 10000

Weather: Wind L – WSW
Sky – OVC
TAir -1.7C
TSurf -10C
T20 -3.5C
S-1, then no snow
Around 1430 small amounts of grauple started to precipitate S-1

Snowpack: HS-190cm
HST – 42cm
Fist hard new snow layer
31cm of 4f below that (Valentines Day Slab?)
23cm of 1f – early Feb slab
1-2cm of 4f (interface between MLK and early feb)
25cm – MLK slab 1f
70cm-ground was F harness, basal facets near willows

1 Column Test – CTN
Outside of >10in of new snow, no other red flag observations made in this zone

Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 03/01/2019
Name: Than

Subject: Vomitous
Aspect: North, North East
Elevation: BTL

Avalanches:

Observed lots of storm snow activity on NE slopes in the 40-degree range with a sustained pitch to them. Nothing moving where we skied.

Weather: mid-20s and snowing 1-2″ per hour

Snowpack: 12 inches new when we got out there and probably 16+ inches new when we left with a short burst of grauple thrown in there. Lightish and not slabbing up yet. Snowmobiling in and out of there was unsane.

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 03/01/2019
Name: billy bar

Subject: Gothic 7am Report

Weather: And here we go again. Warm overnight with snow starting near sunset. Light at first but picking up around 9 p.m. and moderate during the night with strong wind after midnight. Wind lets up around 5 a.m. as snowfall picks up. Snow total is 7½” new and water content of 0.64″ as the snow pack reaches winters high of 65″. Currently obscured with heavy snow and light W wind while warm at 26F. The good news is I think it will stop by April. Maybe.

Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 02/26/2019
Name: Eric Murrow

Subject: Warm up and recent cornice fall avalanche
Aspect: North, North East, East, South East, South, South West, West, North West
Elevation:

Avalanches:

-A few very small, loose wet avalanches were visible on steep, rocky, SE terrain on Ruby (BTL and NTL) and as well as steep, rocky, S and SW slopes on Mount Crested Butte (BTL).
-In the AM noticed a fresh cornice fall triggered slab on Whetstone in the hidden lake basin. Sure appears as this thing ran on Monday sometime, D2.5.

Weather: Moderate air temps with light winds below treeline and lots of solar.

Snowpack: When for a quick trip up Kebler Pass in the afternoon to check on the surface conditions on sunny slopes below treeline. Below about 10,000′ SE-S-SW surfaces were wetted down about 4 to 5 inches. As you climbed above 10,000′ surface wetting only went down to about 2 to 3 inches up to about 11,000′. Close to due east had a weak breaker curst at the surface. Viewed a few snowmobile high marks in below treeline terrain on sunny slopes without results.

Photos:

Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 02/26/2019
Name: Evan Ross

Subject: Eyes On A Couple Old Avalanches
Aspect: South

Avalanches:

Checked in on a couple old ones that most likely failed during the abnormal south to southeast winds last week. . See pictures below.

Snowpack: Afternoon jaunt to the Paradise Divide Area. Today’s sun and near freezing temps was warming the snow surface on southerly slopes up to ~11,500ft say. Moist snow surfaces. Some roller balls and a few small loose snow avalanches out there while looking across the range with good visibility.

Photos:

Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 02/25/2019
Name: Eric Murrow

Subject: Kebler Pass BTL Sunnies
Aspect: East, South East, South
Elevation: 9300′ to 11000′

Avalanches:

Nothing new observed.

Weather: Mild air temps with thin clouds passing. Winds were calm below treeline, no transport observed.

Snowpack: Poked a number of holes in S and SE slopes between 9500′ and 10,800′. HS ranged from 140cm to 175cm. All surfaces from SE-S-SW became moist today and were refreezing in the afternoon – surface crust ~1 cm thick. Two crusts of concern in the upper snowpack – the upper was generally thin ~1cm with on average 20cm F to 4f slab resting above. The lower crust was ~2.5cm thick with 40-65cm slab resting above. Facets below the second crust were up to 1.5mm in size. Upper crust produced ECTN results at all sites. Lower crust consistently produced ECTPH results below the crust, but locations with shallower HS failed above the crust.
Viewed numerous rider tracks on steep, drifted E facing features in the area and snowmobile high marks on steep, drifted SE BTL slope without any results. No collapsing while jumping on numerous small rolls.

Photos: