Date of Observation: 01/16/2017
Name: Zach Guy
Aspect: North West
Elevation: 11900 ft
Avalanches: A handful of recent D1 to D1.5 wet loose and dry loose avalanches on various aspects. Investigated the very large slide on NW aspect of Scarp Ridge. It was about 1,700 feet wide, ran 900 vertical and reached its historic runout 2,300 feet down the path and snapped mature trees. The crown was about 5 feet deep on average and gouged to the ground the whole track, up to pencil hard. Quick estimate of ~50,000 tons of debris . There was about a foot of new snow on the bed surface, so it likely ran towards the end of the storm, maybe 1/13 or so? HS-N-R5-D4-O.
Observed several other long running debris piles and an old crown. See photos.
Weather: Valley fog and thin overcast skies. Light easterly winds. S-1 developed in the afternoon.
Snowpack: Crown profile: 155 cm slab, up to P hard, over 1F+ hard, .2-.3 mm rounding facets. (Jan 1 interface I think). This is a NW facing slope that is often scoured and thin following storms, and it appears that it held a very shallow snowpack in the upper start zone (less than 30 cm thick) before our big January storm.
Old, partially filled crown. D2.5? E/SE aspect.
Debris
Debris
Crown
R4, Long running debris below Schuylkill Ridge, SE aspect NTL start zone.
Bent trees and long running, R4 debris, north aspect off of Mt. Emmons.