Zone: Northwest Mountains
Location: Anthracites
Date of Observation: 12/11/2020
Name: Eric Murrow
Subject: Kebler Pass ski
Aspect: North, North East, East
Elevation: 10,000 – 11,500
Avalanches:
Intentionally triggered one dry loose avalanche that quickly gouged into old snow. Slope was small, but debris volume was bigger than you would expect with only 5 inches of new snow.
Weather: Overcast skies, consistent light snowfall with several short periods of moderate snowfall (S-1 to S2), and generally light winds with occasional moderate gusts from westerly directions.
Snowpack: New snow at Kebler Pass/Antracites was 4″ at 10am and reached 6″ by 3pm. Relatively low-density snowfall. Intentionally sought out terrain features without previous traffic and found loose avalanches were easy to trigger in the new snow that quickly gouged around 6 to 8 inches into old surface (see photo). While hunting for drifted areas was able to produce some cracking to the old snow interface, but propagation was no more than 10 feet and cracks only 6 inches deep. By 230 pm snow surfaces in open north-facing terrain showed more signs of cracking but only shot a ski length in front of you.
Photos:
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- Intentionally triggered loose avalanche on a northeast-facing slope that quickly gouged into old snow. If you look carefully you can see difference between storm and old snow layers.
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- Crack on drifted NE feature near treeline. On slope immediately below the cracking was significantly less.
