Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/25/2019
Name: Ian Havlick
Subject: Fresh Whetstone Avalanches
Aspect: East
Elevation: 8700 BTL
Avalanches:
New pockets failing overnight (red), adjacent to other pockets observed fresh yesterday (yellow). failing 2ft deep on old November and December facets
Weather: 2″ new snow overnight. light north winds at this elevation, moderate NW winds at ridgetop
Snowpack:
Photos:
Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/25/2019
Name: Petar Dopchev
Subject: Natural Avalanches?
Aspect: South East, South
Elevation:
Avalanches:
Not sure, if you guys had noticed those already, but went to fly my drone and saw these two north of the Snodgrass/Gothic trailhead – above the stables. Not certain what the name of that mountain is – No Name Mountain? (Forecaster note:Â White Mountain)Â Anyway, wanted to get close and get a video of it, but it turned out to be way further than I thought and ran out of battery. The two adjacent faces went down. Was there right at sunset…
(Forecaster note:Â These avalanches were first observed the morning of 1/23, but we really appreciate the observation and new photo angle of these avalanches!)
Weather: It was nuking (really windy) on those ridges in the morning. I can see those from my balcony, and usually check to see, if it is windy up high.
Snowpack:
Photos:
Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/24/2019
Name: Than
Subject: Mint Sack
Aspect: North East
Elevation: BTL
Avalanches:
None seen
Weather: spotty snow and plenty of wind transporting snow onto the N/NE aspects
Snowpack: Deeper than before, I know because the stick in the picture below used to poke me in the head while skinning, today it poked me in the shoulder.
Photos:
Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/24/2019
Name: Ian Havlick
Subject: Fresh Whetstone Avalanche
Aspect: East, South East
Elevation: 8600
Avalanches:
new pocket lookers left of previous crowns on the same feature that ran in Jan 7/8 cycle. Avalanche looked 2ft deep, failing on facets near the ground and propagating widely up gully feature.
Weather: light snow, light NW wind, cold temperatures aroudn 10ºF
Snowpack:
Photos:
Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 01/25/2019
Name: Eleven Cat Ski Guides
Subject: Skier Triggered Avalanche Near Miss
Aspect: South
Elevation: 11,000, NTL
Avalanches:
We had a near miss when a guest, unintentionally, skier triggered an avalanche on a South facing aspect around 14:00. It failed on the 1/15 interface on small grained facets. There had been explosive testing on the slope in the morning with no results. 14th skier pushed right-hand boundary into untracked snow and the slab released when he was mid-slope. He skied out left at the bottom and was unaware of the slope had released above him. See attached pics and profile. PM report has details
Weather: S1/S2 snowfall throughout the day. HST 10″.
Snowpack:
Photos:
Location: Cement Creek Area
Date of Observation: 01/24/2019
Name: Cosmo Langsfeld
Subject: Cement/Double Top Slides
Aspect: North East, West
Elevation: 9400-10600 ft
Avalanches:
Noticed these slides on my way back to the trailhead around 3pm. One small slide on E-NE facing slope on Doubletop. Not sure when this slid. Looked fairly fresh. Also two small slides low on Cement, West aspect,~9500ft. I think these slid sometime between 930am and 3pm on 1/24.
Weather: Snowing and low clouds early in the day. Clearing as the day went on. Wind blowing hard enough to transport snow in the valley bottom in the morning. Wind died down and it was calm by mid-morning. Very cold down low. Pleasant off the valley bottom.
Snowpack: Supportive. No obvious signs of instability on the way out. Dug down on low angled NE facing meadow BTL (~10600′). Snow depth 140cm. Top 30 unconsolidated. 110-95 Fist. Crusts at 95 and 85 cm above ground level with a distinct layer of sugar above the 85cm crust. Between the two crusts, 2 layers 1f-4f with softer snow between those two layers at 90cm above ground level. Below 85cm, snow was 4f to Fist, softening with depth until it turned to sugar somewhere around 35cm above ground level, grain size increasing with depth. Leaving the pit, when I got about 6 feet away, the snowpack settled audibly.
Photos:
Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/24/2019
Name: Ian Havlick
Subject: Rough Overall Danger Analysis of CBAC Forecast Area
Aspect:
Elevation:
Avalanches:
Rough Analysis of Avalanche danger across forecast area with colors corresponding (yellow=moderate danger, yellow-ish orange = trending from considerable to Moderate, and dark orange = lingering more widespread considerable danger). Additionally, red stars symbolize observed avalanches size D2.5 or larger since 1/18/2019.
As communicated in daily avalanche forecasts, the threat of greater (larger and more widespread) avalanche activity (both persistent slab and wind slabs) in the shallower snow-covered areas near and east of Crested Butte is symbolized in this visual interpretation.
As illustrated by the red stars, there have been many more large to very large avalanches in the eastern portion of our forecast area. The greatest uncertainty lies in these transition areas in a band from Gothic, to Washington Gulch to Mount Emmons, to Mount Axtell. Â
Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/23/2019
Name: Avalanche
Subject: Two very large natural avalanches on the White Mountain massif
Avalanches:Â Two very large avalanche that ran early on 1/23. The sunny avalanche faces southwest, the shady one faces due west. These avalanches are located on the White Mountain massif to the north of Crested Butte.
Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/23/2019
Name: Cosmo Langsfeld
Subject: Snodgrass
Aspect: North, East
Elevation: trailhead to 11000′
Avalanches:
From Snodgrass trailhead, observed several large avalanches on White mtn and WSC Peak on SW aspects with crowns just below ridgline. Another much smaller avalanche on same aspect at lower elevation on WSC. Clouds were rolling in as I pulled up to the trailhead, so couldn’t get a clear picture, but they looked to be fresh-ish (sometime since the last storm).
Weather: Partly cloudy, then overcast with light snowfall. Light, swirling winds.
Snowpack: Supportive. Ski pen 4-8 inches. Not supportive to boot. Snow surface was soft powder with some minor wind scouring up top. Dug a pit on shallow angle (maybe 20-25 degree) north facing slope at around 11000′. Snow height 140cm. From top down– 140-120: soft fresh snow, 120-30: 4f to fist with a few distinct layers, below 30 was a mix of large grained sugar with spots of ice up to pencil hardness. Compression test produced failure on crust at 30cm above ground level after second tap from the elbow.
Photos:
Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 01/23/2019
Name: Evan Ross
Subject: Thick Firm Wind Deposits Or Good Pow
Aspect: North, East, South
Elevation: 10,000-11,500
Avalanches:
1 small looking slab on a west aspect of Mt Axtell at 11,400ft. Long ways away so hard to tell how fresh. Could have been a D2 but looked smaller, and again just to far away to tell.
Weather: Mostly Cloudy. Few snow flurries in the afternoon, but not accumulating. Drifting snow during moderate wind gusts.
Snowpack: Quiet snowpack and no obvious sings to instability. Previous north to northwest winds had clearly blown up northerly slopes and loaded easterly to southerly facing slopes. Managing terrain for the thickest loading was good travel advice. Pushed on a few loaded slopes with no result, but the wind-loaded snow was thick and very dense. A ski cut in that thick snow wan’t something you would want to hang your hat on. South facing slopes also had a thin crust at the surface from yesterday.
HS was in the 155 to 200+ cm range. Dug one hole on a north facing NTL slope with a nice even snowpack. HS 195. Dug into the upper 100cm and of course no layers of concern. Outside of managing wind-loading, the best practice felt like managing the terrain for potential trigger points where the snowpack would thin, or very steep slopes that may hold a shallower and weaker snowpack.
Photos:
