Observations

Date of Observation: 02/14/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: The center of the donut hole

Observed avalanche activity: No
Snowpack: Got a collapse on a recently drifted feature in tight trees on a NE aspect near treeline. The slab was about a foot thick, and about the size of a dinner table. The slab formed in trees because there was an open northerly fetch upwind that funneled into the trees at this location.

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Date of Observation: 02/13/2022
Name: Rob Strickland

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Loop

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: NTL: Manageable sluffs in E/NE terrain. Some crusts as you dip south. Soft as you dip north.
ATL: wind blown
Weather: Sunny
Snowpack: The wind blew away the surface hoar

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Date of Observation: 02/13/2022
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: 9,000ft-11,500ft. NW-N-E

Observed avalanche activity: No

Avalanches: Small loose dry avalanches on steep slopes near 40 degrees. Mostly northerly facing, and 1 east facing slope around 11,400ft.

Weather: Clear, warm, calm.

Snowpack: Small sluffs were the main thing we ran into on steep slopes, near 40 degrees. We didn’t encounter a persistent slab avalanche problem on the ridge between Wolverine and Redwell basin up to 11,500ft in elevation. Where we skied off the east side of the ridge just below 11,500 we triggered small sluffs. There could have been a couple isolated pockets with a slab avalanche problem in that area that were slightly higher up. Didn’t see much for loading in the alpine.

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Date of Observation: 02/13/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest and Southeast Mountains
Route Description: AM and PM driving binocular tours in the CB/ Mt CB area looking for recent avalanche activity and documenting drifting patterns.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Snowpack: Alpine start zones continue to look beaten and generally eroded by winds. Widespread erosional features on W, N, NE, and E aspects. There are some smooth surfaces on SE aspects ATL. Hard to tell if the smooth surfaces are loaded or just pressed smooth from my vantage. I can still see my ski tracks from lines on Peeler, Gothic, Scarp Ridge, and Schuykill Peak from several weeks ago. Raised tracks in some cases.

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Date of Observation: 02/13/2022
Name: billy barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A slide ran off Gothic a few days ago, probably triggered by wind loaded snow sliding off the straight face area and then fracturing below it, with a decent run-out given how little snow we have been getting. Photo attached.
Snowpack: This winter snowfall amount has dropped to 25% below average but the water content of that snow is only 7% below average. Half of the total snow this winter came during the end of December storm. Snowpack is actually holding on pretty well given the dryness but is still 22% below average. –Since there is no snow to report i thought i would give you a ‘no-snow’ report.

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Date of Observation: 02/13/2022

Route Description: Unknown

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Photo of loose dry avalanche shared via social media

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Date of Observation: 02/12/2022
Name: Garrett Eggers

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Went down 2nd bowl on Snodgrass, through Gothic to Scofield pass, up to paradise divide, and out Washington Gulch.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: I triggered a hard wind slab around 3 PM on south facing terrain at 11,400’ as I came over Paradise Divide in the upper slate region of the northwest mountains. The north side (windward) of paradise divide was strewn with sastrugi but as I crested the saddle onto the south side (leeward) it changed to stiff wind slabs. There were a couple warning wumpfs as I traversed the ridge. I was able to walk on to the middle of a deep lens-shaped slab on low angled terrain but as I skinned towards the edge of the slab and on to slightly steeper terrain (lookers right side of the crown) the slide broke ~1-2’ below my ski and propagated ~75’. The slide ran ~200’ before slowly stopping on lower angled terrain near the road below the south side of the pass. The crown was just shy of 5’ at its thickest and tapered off in either direction. I don’t have exact slope angles but it was interesting to see the slide start on a surprisingly low slope angle (felt like less than 30) and then propagate to a steeper slope. Although this wind slab was the textbook lens-shape, it filled in a saddle and wasn’t obvious to see the shape until looking at the crown, it did however sound hollow and other warning signs were present. I was not expecting a wind slab on this aspect but the wind loading was clear to see from the sastrugi and predominant wind direction on the north side.
Weather: Sunny and low 20s
Snowpack: Still some soft in the shadiest and most sheltered places but largely affected by wind and sun elsewhere. Snowpack is relatively deep for mid-February but we need new snow.

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Date of Observation: 02/12/2022
Name: Frank Stern

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: 9,600 to 11,000′, NE, N, E, SE slopes

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Two loose snow avalanches, E aspect, 11,000′, 35 degree slope
Weather: Sunny
Snowpack: 1″ fresh

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Date of Observation: 02/12/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Snowmobiled on various aspects near and below treeline in Cement Creek drainage. I rode along the Double Top ridgeline for a while, and then to the headwaters of the Upper Cement to Tilton Pass.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Near Crystal Peak, I intentionally triggered a surprisingly large, hard wind slab from low on the slope on my second pass across the apron. The crown was 2 to 3 feet thick, composed of several iterations of wind drifted snow in the past week or two, and it failed on the January facets layer. The slide was on a SE aspect near treeline. The crown released on a typical slope angle for avalanches (~35 degrees), but it pulled into an unusually low angle terrain feature that was 26 to 27 degrees steep.
Another group of 3 that was skiing/boarding in the same area remotely triggered another large wind slab. They reported that this one was only 7″ thick, but it entrained enough snow to easily bury someone. This was on an east aspect near treeline. Both slides snapped a few small trees and had large debris piles: D2 in size.
I also spotted a handful of D1 to D1.5 natural hard slabs that ran in the past few days on a variety of aspects near and above treeline.
Weather: Mostly clear. Light northwest winds with moderate gusts with a few periods of light drifting.
Snowpack: 1″ of new snow. Along Double Top Ridge, wind slabs were small and isolated to just below ridgeline, about 4″ to 6″ thick. I got some localized cracking about 6 feet wide, but couldn’t produce any shooting cracks while riding across a number of drifts. As I got further up the drainage close to the headwaters, previous wind effects were far more pronounced, with huge sastrugi features and wind drifting in a specific distribution from northerly (down valley) winds. I got good views of a lot of alpine terrain in the Southeast Mountains. Ravaged by winds sums it up. Wind erosion is evident on all aspects, with some isolated areas where you could find drifted slabs, mostly at the bottom of the elevation band. Judging from textures, the most widespread wind slab formation is near treeline in this area.

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Date of Observation: 02/11/2022
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Traveled a variety of places, but primary headed strait to NTL elevations targeting wind slabs.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Triggered 1 notable wind slab over facets. East 11,300ft. The crown was 1 to 10 inches thick and released on well-developed near surface facets. There were 2 thin slabs stacked on top of each other with another layer of facets between them. Those slabs were pencil hard. The crown was around 30 to 40 feet wide and ran downhill the same distance. I was intentionally cutting this test slope. The avalanche didn’t release until I had buried my ski under the hard snow and was jerking things around to get it out.

The only other results were in very similar terrain in another location. Here the wind board was only 1 to 2″ thick and the resulting avalanches ran more like sluffs with little propagation over the very weak and faceted snowpack below.

While walking the dog in the morning I triggered a couple of sluffs with my hands off the side of the rec path. The dog was smart enough to not go over there.

Weather: Clear sky became partly cloudy. Warm and breezy. Didn’t see much for snow transport.

Snowpack: There still are some nice soft turns to be had out there. I headed straight from the trailhead to suspect NTL slopes and didn’t really muck around with anything else.

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