Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 12/29/2019
Name: Eric Murrow

Subject: Snow favored area – slab check

Aspect: North East, East, South East

Elevation: 9400′ – 11000′

Avalanches:  Lots of old sluffs that ran several days ago with a few inches of new on top of debris. A handful of windslabs on drifted terrain features E,S,SW. Did not observe any deep or basal weak layer avalanches.

Weather: yup, it was cold! Partly cloudy skies. Light north winds were stacking low cloud cover onto the Ruby Range. Visibility into this terrain was reasonable but often obscured. Observed light transport at upper elevations onto southerly aspects.

Snowpack: Below treeline, in this snow favored area, I was checking on the recent Santa storm to see if it had settled or slabbed up much….it has not. Storm snow since 12/24 was in the 30 to 40cm range throughout Washington Gulch. Immediately beneath the Santa storm is a thin layer of 1mm near surface facets that formed from the dry spell in the middle of December. This layer is obvious in pit walls and produced results in hand sheer and CT’s but because it remains so soft – no propagating test results from profile site. Cold temperatures will likely prevent the Santa storm from becoming cohesive in the short term at sheltered locations; if you could find a location that saw a bit of drifting maybe there could be more cohesion and increased slab avalanche hazard. See photo of profile.

Photos:

Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 12/29/2019
Name: Evan Ross
Subject: Moving Through Terrain
Aspect: North, East, South, West
Elevation: 9,500-12,000

Avalanches: Triggered one 30cm slab with a cut on a 40’ish degree slope above a creek. This was a southerly facing slope, but given its low elevation in the valley bottom it was more sheltered from the sun. The weak layer was the 12/24 NSF. The same concerning weak layer also found higher in the terrain on northerly and easterly facing slopes.

Lots of potentially fresh looking avalanches. With more time looking at those, they still appear to be the old slabs from the last major natural cycle a couple weeks ago. A foot of new snow doesn’t necessarily cover up 3 foot deep crowns that well. So at times they look fresh from a distance, but then you cant find the fresh avalanche debris too. The fresh avalanches were recent windslabs to D2, and many loose dry avalanches that are now a day or a couple days old. As far as recent Persistent Slab Avalanches, it’s really hard to say. At the moment I can’t say that I saw anything substantial on that front.

Weather: Cold, check. Observed snow blowing at NTL elevations from westerly winds. Few clouds through most of the day with a thicker low cloud bank moving over the ruby range in the late afternoon.

Snowpack: Moved through a lot of terrain. Mostly in the mid-30-degree range and lower. Got on some steeper slopes but they were more “test slope” size. Touched almost all the aspects. To sum it all up briefly. Slope cuts on wind-loaded terrain NTL and BTL southerly slopes produced no results. Traveling on all the other slopes didn’t show any obvious signs of instability. The most concerning snowpack observation, was the recent snow sitting on the 12/24 NSF. The 30 to 40cm slab above was maybe to soft to produce results in the terrain I traveled? Or I couldn’t test it enough on slopes that where steep enough. Other then the one small triggered slab.

Location: Mt Emmons
Date of Observation: 12/28/2019
Name: Evan Ross
Subject: Surfing On A Soft Crust, South
Aspect: South East, South
Elevation: 9,200-11,400

Snowpack: Short afternoon family ski. Easy skiing with 7″ new snow on a soft crust caping the Santa Storm. This was below treeline terrain with no wind effected snow. Easy nice skiing with no particular concerns.

Location: Brush Creek Area
Date of Observation: 12/28/2019
Name: Ian Havlick
Subject: West Brush/Deer Creek
Aspect: East, South East, South, South West, West
Elevation: 8600-11,600

Avalanches: No fresh avalanches aside from fairly widespread, generally harmless dry loose sluffing on E-SE facing terrain steeper than 40º. Still noticable were large persistent slab avalanches that failed on NE-E facing terrain from our Dec 14-15th avalanche cycle. These slides have re-loaded with 12-18″ new snow since that last major avalanche cycle.

Weather: Generally unsettled, mostly cloudy with peeks of filtered sunshine. No radiational effect on snow surface, but likely did aid in settlement. Light NW breeze kept it chilly and lightly moving new snow. 6-10″ storm snow accumulations in this drier portion of the range.

Snowpack: Height of snow ranged from 60-110cm with elevation. Boot pen to the ground, with ski pen generally 10-20cm but in shallower or bushy areas easily punched to ground with skis. Still quite weak structure in this portion of forecast area traveled, mostly facets but some 4F hardness in the midpack remains. On steeper southerly facing terrain, a stack of crusts and facets are widespread- no slab yet, but could become quite problematic with large storm or steady incremental loading.

**Did have shooting 30′ repeatable shooting cracks while traversing a 35º east facing slope** . Suspect this was 12/24 MF crust collapsing?

Photos:

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 12/28/2019
Name: Eric Murrow & Zach Kinler

Subject: BTL Carbon West

Aspect: South, South West, West

Elevation: 8700′ – 11000′

Weather: Very light snowfall, light winds, and occasional sunshine through cloud cover

Snowpack: Toured mainly on south through west-facing terrain below treeline. HS ranged from around 50cm below 9000′ and increased to around 75cm at 11000′. Snowpack was just barely supportive to skis making for shallow but nice riding conditions. Slabs were only up to 4f hardness with boot penetration always to ground in this area. Due west-facing terrain lacked any significant melt/freeze crusts, but due south had a supportive melt/freeze crust beneath the past few days snowfall (~9″ HST since 12/24 @ 11k) even SW at 11000′ had a supportive to skis crust beneath new snow. Minimal avalanche hazard through this terrain, but surely is a weak foundation if we get a significant storm in the coming weeks.

Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 12/28/2019
Name: steve banks

Aspect: North, North East, South

Elevation: 10,200-11,500

Avalanches: None observed

Weather: Cold, calm and overcast. Seemed like the temps dropped through the day? Teens to twenties. Calm winds increased through the day and at higher elevations, but still remained light. Sun tried to come out around noon but got shut down. Continuous light snowfall.

Snowpack: 8-12″ of new snow skied really well. Very light density snow. Some wind effected noted in the afternoon in more exposed North facing terrain. South aspect had a couple buried crusts. One 8″ down was soft and formed on x-mas. 8-10 cms of faceting snow below this crust and above a more robust 4 cm thick crust from the pre-holiday warm spell. Faceted snow below with a harness up to 4 finger +. No signs of instability, though other parties reported some cracking in steep North facing terrain.

Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 12/28/2019

Subject: Bond… No Bond

Aspect: North East

Elevation: BTL

Avalanches:  Lots of sluffs on steeper terrain but nothing big.

Weather: Cloudy, a little sun, light winds from south.

Snowpack: 6 new on skintrack from day before, 12-14 total, superlight and awesome. No bonding between new snow and old. All new snow pulling out on steeper more sustained pitches while skiing in micro-slabs.

Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 12/27/2019
Name:

Subject: Anthracites

Aspect: North, North East, South

Elevation: 10000-11400

Avalanches: 1-3″ storm slabs breaking on N/NE terrain >35°. Did not appear to be breaking into previous day’s snowfall.

Weather: Snowing s1 with short periods of s2. Ridge top winds out of S/SW. Wind was moving enough snow to cover parts of skin track on the ridge in-between laps.

Snowpack: HST ~6cm today before 2pm. South facing slopes had thin 1cm zipper crust from yesterday under new snow. Thicker ~2cm crust was present ~15cm below yesterday’s crust. Cracking was observed in today’s storm snow, on North facing terrain and did move as small sloughs/storm slabs in steeper terrain. Storm snow instabilities seemed to be limited to today’s snowfall.

Location: Cement Creek Area
Date of Observation: 12/27/2019
Name: Eric Murrow and Zach Kinler

Subject: Double Top

Aspect: North East, East, South East, South

Elevation: 9600′-12,172

Avalanches:  We observed a couple of un-reported D1.5- D2 persistent slab avalanches on drifted east and northeast terrain near treeline. These likely failed on faceted snow near the ground during the mid-December storm cycle with crowns partially filled back in.

Weather: Broken to Overcast skies, winds calm in sheltered below treeline terrain while light S-SE winds were present at ridgeline. Snow showers with brief S2 rates adding up to 2″ throughout the tour. Temps warming from low teens to near 30F.  (HST at 10,200′ @1:20pm was 5.5″/.6″SWE)

Snowpack: HS 60-100 cm in terrain traveled. Below treeline on E and SE aspects, shallow 4F-1F slabs are resting on 4F facets near the ground. This structure is much less concerning as slabs continue to lose strength. Moving around to South aspects, stacks of crusts with weak snow between present little avalanche hazard.

Ascending to drifted, near treeline locations on the eastern side of the compass we found thicker slabs up to 1F+ resting on 30 cm of old facets and depth hoar. Hard CT results and ECTX results demonstrate the stubborn nature of this structure with propagation occurring when whaling on the slab after standard loading steps. While it is getting harder to trigger, avalanches in this terrain have the potential to be large.

Photos:

Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 12/26/2019
Name: Evan Ross
Subject: Sluffing On Axtell
Aspect: North, North East
Elevation: 9,500ft-11,500ft

Avalanches: Easy to trigger small loose snow avalanches on slopes in the upper 30 to 40 degree range. Also received a text with pictures of similar conditions out the Slate River Drainage.

Weather: Decreasing cloud trend through the day, become few by the late afternoon. Calm winds.

Snowpack: Mostly traveled on below treeline terrain, up to its upper threshold and gray area of change with the near treeline elevation. Some slopes had previously avalanched this season and held a much weaker and shallower snowpack. Some slopes were less than 100cm and were really loosing their mid-pack structure. Some slopes were deeper then 100cm and deserved more time to evaluate the potential consequence of triggering a large Persistent Slab avalanche on the mid-pack Surface Hoar or the Depth Hoar near the ground.

The Santa Storm snow is really impressive in how low density it is. This recent storm accumulations measured in the 6 to 7″ range. Sluffs where easy to trigger, grew in size as they descended, but still finished small in size. If we see some new snow on Friday, it will be interesting to see how it all plays out.