Observations

Date of Observation: 02/09/2022
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Brush Creek 9,900-11,400ft. E-NE.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Skier triggered a few small sluffs. Below Treeline, ENE.

Weather: Clouds built up in the morning and alternated between partly and mostly cloudy. Snow flakes did fall from the sky but they didn’t stack up to anything.

Snowpack: More of the same. Felt like L1 avalanche danger with no avalanche problems until you found a slope with all the ingredients for the loose snow avalanche problem. #1 Northerly facing. #2 Protected from the wind. #3 Steep, near or above 40 degrees. If you check all those boxes, then loose snow avalanches are basically guaranteed to be human triggered. Any triggered sluff was small, predictable, and manageable. The terrain was the magnifier for increased hazard or consequence, not the avalanche problem itself.

Due east facing slopes had surface crusts capping the facets that eliminated the loose snow avalanche problem. If you get slightly north of east than the crusts faded away, or of course any terrain influenced shading also eliminated those surface crusts.

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5324

Date of Observation: 02/09/2022
Name: Benn Schmatz

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Skied Redock from the near the summit in Wolf’s Lair (West Facing) which was sunbaked crustyness and dropped out of that run into an open shot to skier’s right (WNW facing) and found the goods… and by goods I mean 10 inches of facets soooo.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Ski triggered sloughs in facets at 11,000′ that ran the entire slope. No propagation, roughly 5 inches deep. By the time we reached the bottom we ended up cooking the whole slope

Weather: 4/8 cloud cover strong NW breeze at ridgetop. light flurries of snow here and there

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5323

Date of Observation: 02/08/2022
Name: Josh Jones

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Mt. Emmons, Redwell to Slate

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Saw one newer looking D1-1.5 dry loose that ran 300+ feet from below cliff bands NE Aspect 11500′
Weather: 0/8 Skycover
Saw a bit of active wind transport
Snowpack:

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5322

Date of Observation: 02/08/2022
Name: Zach Guy and Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Snowmobiled to West Brush Creek wilderness boundary, and toured into a couple of the upper basins, up to 13000 ft on various aspects.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Came across a pair of small but hard wind slabs that likely ran during the last wind event along with a few recent natural sluffs.  Also intentionally triggered a very thin wind slab BTL that was a couple inches thick, but was about 100 feet wide.  It was harmless to anything bigger than a mouse, but it highlights how tender the current surfaces will be once they get buried by real snowfall.
Weather: Clear skies. Light to moderate northwesterly winds. Minimal transport. If you timed your ski turns with a gust, you could get sprayed by granular facets in the face, which isn’t as sweet as it sounds, but still nice to get a faceshot during these dire times.
Snowpack: We traveled primarily in steep alpine terrain with no signs of instability. Near valley bottoms, we got a few localized collapses or cracks that were a few inches thick, caused by recent drifting over the widespread faceted weak layer.
Winds have beat up the snow surface above treeline terrain and loose dry avalanches were not a concern here. We skirted around one firm-looking drift that looked like it could knock you down. On the same note, there were relatively fewer concerns for sluffs near treeline here compared to some of the more wind-protected slopes where I’ve traveled recently in the Slate or OBJ drainages.

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5321

Date of Observation: 02/08/2022
Name: steve banks

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Brush Creek

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: Ha!
Weather: Sunny, cool temps below freezing. Surprisingly windy even at lower/mid elevations. NW wind was moving even the big surface facets, tracks getting blown over between laps.
Snowpack: Weak AF on the surface. Large surface facets making for good skiing. Still supportive snowpack with ski pen only about 8 cms. Newly forming soft sastrugi on NW icing aspect. Noted wind transport in adjacent peaks, especially NTL.

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5320

Date of Observation: 02/08/2022

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: 8,800-12,200 feet almost entirely on NE aspect.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Older D1 that ran about 200 feet on a convexity between two rock outcrops. Also, skier triggered a very small loose dry slough (or is it sluff) on a steep micro-terrain feature.
Weather: Bluebird with light & variable winds near and above treeline.
Snowpack: BTL and wind protected is soft & faceted. Alpine is a mixed bag of weakening windboard. Reminds me of goldilocks & the three bears; the heavily textured snow is no good, the smooth snow is no good, but the lightly rippled snow is just right!

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5319

Date of Observation: 02/07/2022
Name: Tim Brown

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: SE side of Gothic Mtn

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Shaded easterly aspects near treeline w/ 1.5-2m snow depth: Ski cuts on 35°+ slopes produced shallow dry loose snow avalanches that moved slowly and only entrained the top 6″ of faceted snow directly below tracks. Slopes needed to be around 40° for sluffs to gain enough mass and velocity to be self-sustaining and “pushy.” Got a couple collapses on old and isolated windslabs with propagation up to 5m around skis and up to 8″ deep, but quickly tapering at their margins.
Weather: Clear, calm, cool and cloud-free
Snowpack: Solid mid-pack with up to 6″ of facets or supportive crust with up to 2″ of facets on the surface

5317

Date of Observation: 02/06/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Traveled on E and NE aspects to 11,300 ft.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Ski cut a few long-running loose dry avalanches in Climax Chutes entraining the top 6″ or so of weak facets with no gouging observed. A few of the sluffs ran past the chokes to the top of the aprons, up to 2000 vertical feet, D1 to D1.5 in size. Another group behind us had similar results in the same chute.
Weather: Mostly clear this afternoon. Calm winds where we traveled.
Snowpack: The January snowfall is easily to sluff, roughly 6″ of fist hard facets. The December slab remains intact enough to prevent gouging, about 4F and faceting at the top of the slab.

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5315

Date of Observation: 02/06/2022

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: From my house to the south end of Axtell and a little beyond. 8,900-11,000 feet. E, NE & NW aspects; mostly low angle.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: I was witness to the snow machine triggered slide that Evan described in his observation.
Weather: Lots of sunshine and little wind. Quite peaceful out there until my solitude was rudely interrupted by Evan on his sled ripping around and triggering avalanches😁
Snowpack: The alpine is quite wind-affected, but much of the rippled snow is still skiing well. Protected NW & NE, low-angle, BTL terrain is fast, faceted (but supportable) powder. Quite pleasant, really.

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5314

Date of Observation: 02/06/2022
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Below Mt Axtell

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Triggered 1 small wind slab while traversing into the slope. East 10,960. The crown ranged from 2 feet down to 2 inches. D1 in size and harmless. This slope has a good fetch and in the crown there were three hard wind slabs, all stacked on top of each other. Each thin hard slab sandwiched a layer of weak faceted snow. The crown did propagate fairly wide into some lower angled terrain that didn’t release. I later put one track on a similar slope in the same area without a result.

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