Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 01/02/2020
Name: Evan Ross & Zach Kinler
Subject: High Quality New Snow
Aspect: East, South East
Elevation: 10,500-12,500

Avalanches: Nothing significant, but a good number of generally small natural avalanches. Plenty of loose snow, and also soft slab avalanches to be seen. All the soft slab avalanches were at near or above treeline elevations in open terrain. These all appeared to break at the old snow interface or within the recent storm snow. No slabs were observed in sheltered terrain.

Weather: Few clouds through most of the day. While driving to the Kebler trailhead, big snow plumes could be seen off Mt Emmons. After getting up into the Kebler Pass area the wind had calmed. Lite drifting could be seen in the Ruby Range during the day. In the late afternoon, the orographic clouds finally moved over the Ruby Range bringing S1 snowfall and increased winds from the northwest.

Snowpack: High-quality new snow. Cold, not quite blower, but very light and very good. Storm totals around 12″. No slab avalanche issues were found in the new snow on protected or wind-sheltered slopes. Moving through wind-loaded slopes at NTL elevations, drifts were around 2 feet thick, but still had little slab to them. We were able to ski cut a few narrow and very soft wind slabs in the terrain. However, this wasn’t a significant problem or really much of a problem at all. Moving into the alpine, similar conditions were observed, but travel into wind-loaded terrain was both limited and avoided.

The sun was warming the new snow on the lower elevation southerly facing slopes during the day, before the clouds moved in during the late afternoon. Helping settlement, but not enough to create a crust at the surface on these slopes.

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/02/2020
Name: Ian Havlick
Subject: Red Lady Bowl
Aspect: East, South East, South, South West
Elevation: 10-12,000ft

Avalanches: none observed in terrain traveled. Looked like potential some small debris across in the Green Lake area near Axtell, and some minor human-cut cornice fall in center of RLB, no results.

Weather: Beauty day, cold, crisp, tapering NW winds after 11am, orographic haze and very light flurries persisted most of day. Storm accumulations seemed in the 6-10″ range. intense solar

Snowpack: Lower elevation protected southerlies moistened in afternoon and will be a crust tomorrow. Otherwise, remarkable coverage above treeline, winds have not moved much snow off traditionally scoured uptrack to top of Emmons. No profiles dug, but pole tests confirmed stack of melt freeze crusts in upper 3 feet of snowpack. Denser wind drifted snow in lee and crossloaded terrain. Avoided obvious wind loaded terrain today.

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/01/2020
Subject: Mt. Emmons – Red Lady Glades
Aspect: South East
Elevation: 10,700

Avalanches: Around 2 PM, partner triggered a small, inconsequential slide as they skied along the top of an east facing convex rollover btl on generally shaded, south facing terrain. Slide did not propagate over the entire slope.

Weather: Slide occurred between the first and second wave of the New Years storm. Approximately 2” of new snow had fallen so far that day.

Snowpack: Slide appeared to fail on the 12/24 facet layer and entrained the Santa Storm snow.

Photos:

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/01/2020
Aspect: North East
Elevation: 11,300

Avalanches: no and no evidence of old ones seen

Weather: Mostly clear, calm and cold. Some gusty winds up top later in the afternoon.

Snowpack: Snowpack not very consolidated nor all that deep yet. skied well, but many hollow spots near rock bands and trees. Lots of sluffing in the top 6 to 8 inches of new snow up high. Boot pen knee deep in the valley floor. Skin track had an icy base on south aspect.

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/02/2020
Name: billy barr
Subject: Gothic 6am Weather Update

Weather: moderate snow towards mid dat Wed. made up much of yesterdays snow with light snow starting near sunset. Then off and on light snow through the night before some clearing around 5 a.m. Total snow for the 24 hours is 6″ with a light 0.38″ of water with winters deepest of 33½” on the ground. Little to no wind with all this and moderating temperatures as Wed. high was 22F. Low so far today is the current +12F- quite a change from recent mornings. Partly cloudy now with a light wind.

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 12/31/2019
Subject: Snodgrass end of year
Aspect: North
Elevation: 11,080

Avalanches: Minor surface sloughing in steeper terrain as we descended

Weather: Clear and cold. No wind percievied.

Snowpack: 11,080 NNE- HS 110cm
Ski Pen 20cm
Boot Pen 60cm
ECTX. Propagated on 31 (Hail Mary) down 80cm on large grained facets
Protected slope in trees still holding supportive mid pack. Skied without issue today, but would not trust the snowpack after a significant loading event.

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 12/31/2019
Name: TC
Subject: Schuylkill Ridge
Aspect: North East
Elevation: 11,200

Avalanches: Very small windslab at ridge top triggered when entering skier’s left side of Yogi’s. Evidence of previous natural avalanche activity, presumably during the most recent storm, just a few feet to the north of the triggered slab. 8-10 inch crown and very slow moving debris that only traveled 20 or 30 feet downslope.

Weather: Bluebird skies, no wind. Cold!

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 12/31/2019
Subject: RMBL Study plot 12/31/19
Elevation: 9500

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 12/31/2019
Subject: Snodgrass Obs
Aspect: North East
Elevation: 10,900

Avalanches: Skier Triggered a dry loose avalanche in a steep gully terrain trap on 1st bowl. Ran about 300ft downhill piling a lot of snow on the trees below

Location: Crested Butte Area, Mt Emmons
Date of Observation: 12/30/2019
Name: Evan Ross
Subject: Couple Of Small Skier Triggered Wind Slabs
Aspect: North East, East, South East
Elevation: 9,200-12,000

Avalanches: Coupe of small skier triggered Wind Slabs to D1.5 with crown depth 30-40cm. SE aspect, above treeline.
Several skier triggered loose snow avalanches on NE to E to SE at NTL and BTL elevations. All small and moving slow.

Weather: Clear sky, calm wind, cold temps.

Snowpack: Wonderful ski conditions. The specific terrain that we found ourselves managing was previously wind-loaded terrain. This was were you could find the best distribution of Persistent Slab Structure and/or today’s forecasted Wind Slab Problem.

NTL SE facing slopes only had the potential for concern where they were wind-loaded. Otherwise the snowpack is generally weak and mixed with crusts. In this terrain, the 12/26 thin crust may be the first to collapse into the 12/24. Though there are several layers of concern in the snowpack. A decent load and a new slab will need to happen to see the PSa problem expand and become widespread on this aspect. 1.5 SWE, or closer to 1.2 SWE in a quick loading event.

NE NTL/BTL elevations were weak and not concerning for a slab avalanche problem in this terrain. HS was about 90cm. A few skier triggered sluffs, but they were stubborn, slow, and easy to manage.

Couple of small Wind Slab Avalanches on an East to Southeast facing slope above treeline.