Granite Creek and Round Mountain

CB Avalanche Center2016-17 Observations

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/14/2017
Name: Ian Havlick
Subject: Granite Creek and Round Mountain
Aspect: North, West, North West
Elevation: 9500-11800

Avalanches: lots of D1 wet loose sluffing in steep terrain, both natural and off ski turns.
observed a few partially buried crowns from earlier in week, visibility remained limited to get longer distance observation of bigger terrain.
Weather: S2 snow tapered by 1130am, then overcast and fog, eventually clearing up to broken skies 1430. Winds were light to calm. temperatures increased from mid 20s to mid 30s by 1500.
Snowpack: Generally solid and deep with HS averaging 120-150cm, increasing with elevation. Did find reactive 4mm SH and basal facets in profile 9800ft, protected meadow, where you’d expect to find surface hoar if it was gonna be there. CT12 on SH, and CT14 on basal facets.

Dug again on more northerly, near treeline meadow and found very rightside-up snowpack with density increasing with depth. Boot pen here was about 60cm. Most concerning place to trigger a slide is margins, and places made shallow by wind scouring.

Surface snow, upper 2″ that fell during morning had interesting preserved stellars that failed easily and produced surprisingly high-speed and pushy wet loose sluffing that was worth avoiding get hit by on descent.

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