Date of Observation: 01/04/2021
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Location: East Beckwith
Aspect: North, North East
Elevation: 9,600 – 11,500′

Avalanches: Nothing fresh, some D2 slab activity from last cycle.
Weather: Few clouds, light winds.
Snowpack: Less than an inch of new snow overnight preserved large grained surface hoar on the near and below treeline slopes that we visited. There was enough wind in exposed locations to destroy it.
Still getting semi-frequent collapses below treeline and a few collapses near treeline. The latter triggered by second person on skin track or from hard stomps. The collapses didn’t produce much for shooting cracks, but judging off of how far away trees were shaking, it seems that most radiated less than 20 to 30 feet. This is a notable improvement from collapsing observed earlier in the week. We didn’t travel much near anything steep enough to avalanche; the few small test slopes below treeline that we stomped on didn’t produce any results. See attached photo for a profile at 10,600 feet, which produced moderate propagating results (ECTP14) 50 cm deep on 2 mm, fist hard facets.

Photos:

Date of Observation: 01/03/2021
Name: Ben Pritchett

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Location: Elkton area
Aspect: South East, South, South West, West
Elevation: Near and Above Treeline

Avalanches: One tiny fresh wind slab off the Treasury to Galena ridge.
Weather: Ridgeline Wind Speed: 10-20 mph
Ridgeline Wind Direction: NW
Wind Loading: Previous
Temperature: 15 F
Sky Cover: Few
Weather Description: Clouds increased late morning through the afternoon. Light to moderate northwest winds.
Snowpack: Travelled over alpine south and southeast-facing slopes. Near treeline we travelled on east through south to west. No cracking or collapsing observed. A week ago on a similar route in the same terrain collapsing was common near treeline, but not above. Overnight northwest winds transported snow only near alpine ridgelines. Drifts were soft and posed no threat.

Photo caption: Northwest winds scoured windward alpine ridges and built soft fresh drifts. January 3, 2021.

Photos:

Date of Observation: 01/01/2021
Name: Mike Barney

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Location: below Round Two, Irwin
Aspect: West
Elevation: 11,100′

Avalanches: SS-AS-R1-D1-O 50 to 60cm deep, 50′ wide, and ran 150′ triggered on Friday (1/1/2021)
Weather: Light to Mod southwest winds scattered clouds and around 17F.
Snowpack: NTL west aspect- 50 to 110cm HS, with a pencil to knife hard mid-pack layer and about 25cm of depth hoar on the ground. BTL west aspect sheltered from the wind- 80cm HS with 4F- mid-pack and about 25cm of depth hoar at the base.

Photos:

Date of Observation: 01/03/2021

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Location: Anthracite Region
Aspect: North East
Elevation: 9200

Avalanches: No evidence of recent Avalanche Activity
Weather: Calm cold and Humid up high
Snowpack: Skiing 30 degrees or less and still whumphing in certain areas of the snowpack on the uphill .. our lovely persistant slab issue I suspect.

Widespread faceting and surface hoar:Faceted snow refers to snow grains within the snowpack that have transformed into larger, angular grains. Facets have weak bonds with neighboring snow grains.

If you don’t care about the consequences , get beyond yourself and consider the danger you put others in when you need to be rescued.

Photos:

Date of Observation: 01/02/2021
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Location: Ruby Range
Aspect: South East, South
Elevation: 10,700-12,600

Weather: Low clouds in the morning obscured the range, as those moved out a high cloud shield moved over for the mid day, with clearing in the afternoon. Increased winds were the main weather factor. Moderate speeds from the NW.

Snowpack: Snow surfaces that looked beautiful the last few days, had gotten affected by the recent increase in winds. In our case slopes that had the best SE to E tilt held soft snow surfaces, while some more southerly slopes had been blown back to old soft crusts or soft wind texture. Probably just due to the way the winds flowed through and around the terrain. In this area, there wasn’t much for new wind loading and the windward side of the terrain didn’t really have much snow for transport.

Several hand pits on S to SE facing slopes at upper elevations revealed no current avalanche problem. Never really found enough slab on the 12/10 curst to try and get a result. While skiing through areas that appeared to be more wind-loaded previously, also produced no results. Snowpack heights were measured were surprisingly shallow in the 40 to 60cm range on average. I wouldn’t have much trust in the snowpack structure observed during the next loading event. Those hand pits were on slope angles in the low 30-degree range. So the curst facet sandwich would be collapsible under new load with enough weight. Didn’t observe the thickness of those buried crusts on steeper slopes or the snowpack structure on the deeper looking sections of the slope.