Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 01/05/2020
Name: Eric Murrow
Subject: Slate River Shady
Aspect: North, North East, East, South East
Elevation: 8900′ – 11400′

Avalanches: None observed

Weather: Comfortable air temperatures throughout the day. Partly cloudy skies on the increase during sunset. Winds at ridgetop ramped up around noon from WSW. Some flagging on a few of the highest peaks and slight transport on near treeline ridge.

Snowpack: Ascended east and northeast facing terrain and found fresh surface hoar growth up through ridgetop elevations.  6mm near valley bottom and only 3mm near 11400′; even southeast slope at 11200′ had small surface hoar around 1230pm when we passed through.
Poked a quick hole around 11k on a northeast-facing slope found an HS of 120cm; I believe this slope may have avalanched very early in the season as it appeared to be slightly shallower and weaker than expected. Performed ECT to test the facet layer that was buried at Christmas, but even with 40cm of settled snow above the interface(still mostly F hard with small bit of 4f) a slab has yet to form, ECTN 12 result. Quick shovel tilt test revealed interface beneath the New Years storm; this interface is only 12cm below the surface at this location as winds have stripped some volume in the past two days. Tested the 3mm to 4mm basal depth hoar with a Deep Tap test, DTM.
Snowsurface on sunny slopes became slightly moist below treeline in the afternoon.

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Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 01/05/2020
Name: Ian Havlick
Subject: Mount Baldy South Bowl
Aspect: East, South East, South, South West, West
Elevation: 9600-12600

Avalanches: 1 fresh windslab in west-facing Paradise Basin (above Paradise Mine), looked to have failed yesterday morning potentially? Hard to make out depth but 1-3ft deep, not failing on ground. Similar aspect to yesterday’s reported Gothic Persistent Slab.

Weather: Partly cloudy, turned overcast, and then back to partly cloudy skies after 1400. Quite mild and balmy until reaching near treeline where steady light to moderate WNW winds continued to blow.

Snowpack: Snowpack in terrain traveled was generally a mix of surface facets and wind ripple down below treeline, to sastrugi and pencil+ phone book hard slabs in the alpine. Did not dig profile but much probing with poles revealed as expected, stacks of melt-freeze crusts in upper 60cm, with small-grained faceted snow. No significant slabs in south-facing terrain BTL to ATL and skied center of bowl looking for wind ripple without any signs of instability.

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Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/04/2020
Name: Evan Ross
Subject: COBC AIARE 2
Aspect: North East
Elevation: 9,500-10,500

Avalanches: On Gothic Mountain, several small loose snow avalanches ran out of steep south facing slopes near rock bands.

Weather: Most significant weather was the warm temps and increasing winds in the afternoon. We didn’t pop above ridgline until late afternoon, right when the winds seemed to increase from the west south west. Large snow plums could be seen off the high peaks.

Snowpack: At lower elevations, the HS was around 90cm’s with no concerning Persistent Slab structure left in the snowpack. Thin and firm wind slabs could be seen on the cross-loaded terrain at these lower elevations. As we climbed we chose to avoid several cross-loaded terrain features, mostly due to the increased HS and lingering potential persistent slab structure. As we moved higher the HS also increased and we found a better strong over weak structure. This persistent slab avalanche problem appeared to be either stubborn or unreactive to human triggering in the terrain. At 10,400ft near ridgeline. HS was 140cm. CT and ECT column tests didn’t produce results in the mid to upper snowpack at this location. The depth hoar at the bottom of the snowpack was too deep for these particular column tests.

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Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/04/2020
Subject: Snodgrass
Aspect: North West
Elevation: BTL

Avalanches: Observed a slab avalanche on White Rock Mountain or adjacent peak. Looks to be a R2-D2 and may have resulted from cross loading from yesterday’s high winds reported in the forecast. This avalanche is visible from Snodgrass Parking lot but hard to see exact starting zone. Debris ran from side gully and piled up in main gully. See picture.

Weather: Few clouds. Calm. Air Temperature was 22 degrees in shade around 13:30.

Snowpack: Pit depth was 105 cm. Performed a compression test and had a CT 24 Q3 on the October layer. See pictures. Slope was 39 degrees and this pocket had not been skied yet. Pit photos and profile attached.

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Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 01/04/2020
Name: Eric Murrow
Subject: Paradise Divide – natural avalanches
Aspect: North, North East, East, South East, South, South West, West, North West
Elevation: 8900′ – 12000′

Avalanches: Hand full of natural avalanches from the past 24 hours. Several Wind Slabs and a couple of deeper, dangerous Persistent Slab. Good views down the spine of Ruby Mountains without seeing other significant recent naturals on E and NE aspects.
Gothic D2.5, West, NTL
Purple Ridge D2, East, ATL
D1, East, ATL x 3
Elkton Knob D1.5, West, NTL
Weather: Pleasant air temperatures, mostly sunny skies with moderate winds near and above treeline. Winds shifted from NW to almost SW throughout the day. As winds changed directions more snow transport was visible in the afternoon.
Snowpack: Traveled through east – south – southwest aspects below and near treeline in open terrain. Surface was a mix of smooth, breaker windboard and soft, textured dapple. While traveling above drifted near treeline, easterly terrain found stiff, pencil wind slabs up to 50cm thick. Stomped on a couple of these stiff wind slabs without result, but certainly avoided skiing on these in avalanche terrain. Our group of 5 regrouped on a low angled, drifted southwest facing slope and produced a deep, loud, and slope scale collapse. No crack was present but it seems like the collapse was on basal weak layers not the crust buried around Christmas time; HS was around 120cm. Drifted sunny slopes near treeline have begun to develop a slab resting above facet/crust combinations but are limited to wind loaded features.

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Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/03/2020
Name:
Subject: Snodgrass
Aspect: South East
Elevation: 10600

Avalanches: R1D1 soft slab. Broke 8-10″ deep on weak 1″ crust above road cut

Weather: Partly cloudy. Moderate cold wind out of N/NW

Snowpack: 8-10″ m snow from most recent storm. Had enough cohesion to propagate a cracks and break as a soft slab on slopes near 35°.

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Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 01/02/2020
Name:
Subject: Small soft slab Anthracites
Aspect: North, North East
Elevation: 11000

Avalanches: Small soft slab release after a roll midway down Big Chute in the Anthracites. R1D1

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Location: Cement Creek Area
Date of Observation: 01/03/2020
Name: Eric Murrow

Subject: Windy Cement Creek – Hunter Hill

Aspect: East, South East

Elevation: 9000′ – 12000′

Avalanches: Observed a handful of natural avalanches near and above treeline on east and southeast aspects. Several looked to have a bit of age possibly from the Christmas storm period, but two windslabs were recent from drifting. I was able to poke into one of these fresh windslab avalanches and found slabs 30cm thick and pencil hard.

Weather: Mostly sunny with a few thin, low clouds on highest terrain. The wind was the real story…alpine terrain was absolutely blasted with snow being blown into the atmosphere at upper elevations. Would estimate wind speeds of 40+ miles per hour above tree line out of the NNW.

Snowpack: HS was around 70cm in this area. SE slopes were largely a mix of facets and crusts capped with recent snowfall. An easterly facing slope at 11,900′, with previous drifting, produced an ECTP 13 result, 30cm down on thin facet layer. Much of the alpine terrain in this area was worked by the wind leaving behind some hardslabs on select leeward alpine features; terrain closer to treeline held a more concerning snowpack with some drifting but not the blasting alpine terrain received.

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Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 01/02/2020
Name: Schiff
Subject: Purple Palace Possible Persistent Slab
Aspect: North, North East, East
Elevation: 11,500

Avalanches:

“Noticed this yesterday morning on Purple Palace, probably happened early morning or during Wednesday night”

Fx Note: This avalanche may be a repeat offender that has slid earlier in the season and reloaded. Hard to tell from this distance shot. Regardless of a windslab or persistent slab, this avalanche is dangerous and deadly.

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Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/02/2020
Subject: Anthracite Mesa-Coneys
Aspect: North East
Elevation: BTL
Avalanches:

Between Baldy and Schoefield Pass, observed a few U-U-R1-D1 slides on SW/S slopes. See picture.

Weather: moderate winds ATL in the morning with blowing snow on Gothic and Baldy from the East. Winds dropped to calm to light. Few clouds. Air temperature at 11:30 AM on ridge was 20 degrees F.

Snowpack: See attached snow pilot plot. This is the first pit this year and perhaps since 2018 so I could be off by one factor of hardness for 1F and P between 0 cm and 64 cm.
Compression test: CT 29 Q3 on 1F snow at 15 cm.
boot pen: 36 cm

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