Date of Observation: 01/08/2021
Name: Travis Colbert

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Farris Creek
Aspect: South, South West, West
Elevation: 9,000-12,200

Avalanches: Old debris from the summit of Double Top N, in NE terrain. No new avalanches observed.
Weather: Blue sky, very little wind. Zero degrees in the AM, felt quite warm in the sun as we ascended…
Snowpack: Pretty much terrible. Ran the full spectrum between breakable crust to bottomless facets. Pretty much everything except supportable, soft snow. Large, widespread surface hoar. A little bit of supportable crust on steep south facing slopes where the snow was shallow (10cm); on those same slopes with deeper snow, punchy and weird, with shallow wind slabs just below the ridges. HS ranged from 0 – 85cm, with the average being 45 – 85cm. Had the opportunity to down climb a little maroon formation where the HS was 0. Also had the opportunity to perfect what I am calling the rocking side-slip in a shallow gully where the crust was particularly breakable and the baby aspens were especially tight. Finally, got the chance to wallow through the deepest and least supportable snow for that last mile or so along Farris Creek, back to our skin track. Exposed a pocket gopher when I punched through into the stream near the bottom; he/she seemed terrified. All in all, a good adventure in bad snow. The skin track is in if anyone wants to give it a whirl and ski a different aspect, or the same ones we did if my description was compelling.

Date of Observation: 01/08/2021
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Mount Emmons
Aspect: North East, East
Elevation: 9,000 to 11,200 ft

Avalanches: Intentionally skier triggered a few small loose dry avalanches entraining the top 6″ of faceted surface snow. They ran about 600 vertical feet.
Weather: Few clouds, calm winds, mild temps above the inversion.
Snowpack: Still getting abundant collapses while breaking trail in untrafficked terrain. Persistent slab structure was about 18″ thick on average. Below ~10,000′, the slabs are so weak and faceted that the collapses only radiating a few yards (on northeast aspects). On east aspects at these lower elevations, we got a few collapses that propagated up to 20′ or so where there is a crust at the 12/10 interface helping to drive propagation. Avalanches at this elevation would be quite small and fairly isolated.
Above about 10,000′, the slabs get stiffer (up to 1F-). Collapses require a stomp or two, but they radiate across entire clearings (which were 50 feet or less where we traveled). Moderate propagating results in stability tests.
The snow surface continues to grow weaker. Large grained surface hoar is widespread except in wind exposed features. Near surface faceting is prevalent, and shallow facet sluffs are easy to trigger. Slopes that have previously avalanched (of which there are many), have an even weaker snow surface due to their shallow depths and stronger temperature gradients. The ones we poked at have an old bedsurface crust below all of the weak junk, which will make for an even more dramatic hardness difference when these layers get buried.

Photos:

Date of Observation: 01/07/2021
Name: David Bumgarner

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Snodgrass – Upper Open Shot between 3rd bowl & Abbey Lane
Aspect: North East
Elevation: 10,500

Avalanches: None observed
Weather: Temp: Mid 20’s
Sky: Few
Wind: Calm
Precip: none
Snowpack: Snow Pit:
Aspect: NE
Elevation: 10,500
Slope Angle: 28

HS: 84cm
Multiple CT Moderate results (12,12, 14) Broken fracture in facets 49cm down (35cm)
ECTN
Mid pack is losing strength and faceting out

Only had one sign of instability throughout tour. Had multiple shooting cracks near a steeper roll near the bottom of our first fun in a shallow area.

Photos:

Date of Observation: 01/07/2021
Name: Ross Matlock

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: 2nd bowl
Aspect: North East
Elevation: Coneys

Avalanches: No avalanches seen or any sign of instability
Weather: Clear baby, some would say warm!!
Snowpack: In a word weak! I feel we are teetering on full facet top to bottom. What was perhaps a supportably snow pack, is slowly turning to a weak unconsolidated, trap door facet monster. Its nothing unusual for us, but with the surface hoar developing and continued cold temps, we are setting ourselves up for potential problems with more snow load.

Date of Observation: 01/06/2021
Name: Ian Havlick

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Gothic Shoulder South
Aspect: South, South West, West
Elevation: 9,000-11,400

Avalanches: Only fresh avalanche observed was ~D1.5 on Baldy, off a windloaded southerly facing slope ATL. Likely will be reported by others closer to Baldy today.

Weather: Relatively cold morning, strong solar, moderate westerly winds ATL.

Snowpack: Several large collapses on flat terrain on Washington Gulch valley bottoms. More signs on instability on southerly, low angle terrain but NO signs of instability on southerly slopes with more slope angle. Travelled slopes up to 31º today. Steeper solar aspects were moist by 1300 and rollerballs and small wet loose out of warm, southerly facing terrain on Gothic. Dug one pit on low angle WNW facing slope BTL. Obvious weak layer but fairly faceted overlaying slab not producing propagation.. ECTX and CT30+1 SC.

Date of Observation: 01/04/2021
Name: Jack Caprio
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Aspect: North East
Elevation: 10,000

Snowpack:

As of 1/4/21, the HS at the study plot (NE, 10,000) is 71 cm. 13 cm of F to 4F snow sits at the top of the snowpack. This layer represents the newer storm snow that fell over the past 10 days which buried the 12/26 interface @ 58 cm.

Below the 12/26 interface lies 10 more cm of 4F- snow leading to a buried NSF layer at 48 cm (12/22 interface). This interface initiated failure during an ECT test but did not propagate.

13 cm below the 12/22 interface is our old friend the 12/10 interface. This layer, which is 35 cm thick, has evolved into depth hoar near the ground. ECT tests resulted in propagating results (ECTP22 @ 12/10 interface). This same interface, when tested almost 2 weeks prior on 12/23/20 (snowpit attached in images), produced propagating results much more easily (ECTP7). According to the results over time, the 12/10 interface would appear to be becoming more stubborn. But with the 12/22, and 12/26 interfaces sitting above of the 12/10 interface, we are continuing to see plenty of avalanche activity on steep, sheltered NE facing terrain.

Date of Observation: 01/05/2021
Name: Eric Murrow Evan Ross

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Snodgrass north side
Aspect: North, North East, East
Elevation: 9,400′ – 11,100′

Avalanches: Intentionally triggered a couple small loose avalanches on very steep features below ridgetop, just below 11,000′.

Weather: Mostly cloudy skies with snowfall rates between s-1 and s2. Several short periods of moderate snow. Accumulations as of 3pm around 4 inches.

Snowpack: Traveled above numerous northerly terrain features, many of which avalanched in December, without collapsing or signs of instability. Descended northerly slopes up to about 35 with no signs of instability. Traveled through some lower angled slopes that looked to have seen little traffic yet this winter without collapsing. One hasty pit showed a snowpack largely composed of fist hard snow around 90cm deep…just enough support for reasonable riding conditions. Other lower angled northerly features felt a bit stiffer while probing as compared to pit location. It is becoming hard to visually tell which slopes have avalanched in December and those that didn’t. We choose to avoid the steepest terrain and avoid features that had consequential runouts to hedge our bets.

No need for a shovel here, just wipe the snow away with your hand and make a wall. Simple snowpack structure. Soft faceting slab over weak facets. ENE Aspect, 10,600ft, HS ~90cm, Slope ~34