Observations

Date of Observation: 02/05/2022
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Upper Crystal. 9,000-12,600 all aspects. Primary traveling around 11,400ft on north and northerly facing slopes were the best snow was.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: Nothing new

Weather: Clear. Steady moderate winds in the alpine. Snow blowing off the peaks but no new slab formation.

Snowpack: 40 miles traveling through a whole bunch of avalanche terrain and avalanche paths without much of anything for an avalanche problem encountered.

Loose Dry Avalanches: Our max slope angles reached into the 40-degree range, while average sustained slope angles through the start zones and avalanche paths were probably in the mid-30-degree range. We didn’t see much for initiation of sluffs, but without average sustained slope angles near 40 degrees, a sluff just wasn’t going to get going. Many of the slopes traveled had previously avalanched back in December at some point and refilled back into a deep and strong snowpack.

Wind Slabs: A couple of shooting cracks, 2 to 3″ deep, near treeline, but dinner table size slabs. In the alpine, the old wind-loaded snow was very hard and we didn’t observe any signs of instability. There was snow blowing in the alpine but didn’t find any new slabs formation.

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5312

Date of Observation: 02/05/2022
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Cement Creek TH to Horse Basin drainage up the north ridge. Descended into North Bowl from 12K.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Skier triggered a D1 Loose on a north aspect at 11,800′. Observed some minor Loose avalanches from a previous group skiing some near treeline northeast-facing shots, but debris piles looked pretty small.
Weather: Clear skies, very cold valley bottom temps, but mild air temps as we ascended to above treeline. Light winds with moderate gusts in late AM from the west eased by the PM and made for comfortable conditions while above the treeline. Did not observe any wind-loading; an inch or so of soft snow was still sitting on ridge tops waiting to be transported to leeward features.
Snowpack: We traveled on northerly aspects at all elevations. Generally, found 6 to 8 inches of weak surface snow (1-2mm facets) available for Loose avalanche entrainment. I poked into several northeast-facing near and above treeline leeward features and was able to produce shallow cracks about an inch deep, but drifts were tiny and isolated to immediately below cornices or ridgetop. Alpine terrain has held up well during windy periods over the past week. Lots of soft ‘dapple” textured snow in the alpine with a few areas of smooth, thin windboard.

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5311

Date of Observation: 02/05/2022
Name: Jeff Smith

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Northeast face in the Southeast Mountains

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: People ask me all the time if animals trigger avalanches. Here’s proof that they do. A coyote dropped of this alpine ridge and set off 4 small point release surface sluffs of faceted snow. He was not caught or carried in the slides. The slides start and finish at the arrows in the photo.
Weather: Sunny and calm with temps in the 20’s at 11,000 ft. -25F at the trailhead.
Snowpack:

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5310

Date of Observation: 02/04/2022
Name: BEN GRAVES

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Toured from Lost Lake into cirque below summit of East Beckwith.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Many R1 D1 natural slides on East/SE above tree line. 12000 ft on steep rocky slopes. ~6” crown. S
Two skier triggered R1 sluffs below tree line. Ski cut on Steep 45 degree north facing trees . Ran in new snow/top 10cm of highly faceted snow
Weather: Clear. No wind. Cold
Snowpack: At and below tree line the top 10+ cm of snow was highly faceted. Hard to skin on anything steeper than 30 degrees and completely
unconsolidated Some sun crust on east/SE slopes with 2-10 cm of new wind blown snow depending on aspect and trees. Small collapses were observed and felt at tree line. No propagation and get generally very stable. Sluffing on all steep shaded slopes but easy to avoid and manage.

Above tree line- 1-5 cm wind slab was starting to form on North facing slopes (12000 ft) not quite cardboard trap door but starting to get there.
East facing was the softest most rideable slopes ATL. SE had small natural avalanche activity.

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5309

Date of Observation: 02/04/2022
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Southeast end of Whetstone

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: We skier triggered a couple of Loose Dry avalanches on steep northeast and east-facing terrain near treeline. One reached D1.5 in size.
Weather: Cold temps at all elevations and very light winds.
Snowpack: Same ol’ story on northeast and east slopes with around 8 inches of weak surface snow for loose avalanches to entrain. As you move to the sunny side of the east aspect the volume available greatly decreases.
I descended the start zone of a southeast, near treeline feature and found 1 to 2 inches of low-density snow sitting on a supportive-to-skis crust. Surprisingly, the snow surface was more or less dry at 1 pm; cold temps balanced out the solar input to keep the surface dry.

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5308

Date of Observation: 02/04/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic Mountain, traveled on S to E to NE aspects to 12600 ft.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Skier triggered a loose snow avalanche on the east face that ran about 1500 vertical feet through the choke. The slide remained small, but would have been consequential in this terrain if someone were caught in it. The sluff appeared to pull out a few thin slabs (1″ to 4″ thick) within the gulley on its way down.
Weather: Light winds, varying from northwest to northeast. No transport. Clear skies.
Snowpack: South facing terrain has dust on thick crust; good slide for life conditions.
The east face slid to the ground at the end of the holiday cycle, so the snowpack there is very shallow and weak: about a foot deep and made up of large-grained facets (2-3mm). There was enough sastrugi textures and wind crusts at the surface to prevent constant sluffing, but we found one especially hollow spot that got the sandbox moving. The snowpack on the East Face is reminiscent of our early December snowpacks the last two years. Total garbage. There appeared to be some thin drifted slabs in concave terrain features (middle of gullies) left behind by last night’s upslope winds; identified by smooth textures compared to rippled texture elsewhere.

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5307

Date of Observation: 02/03/2022
Name: Zach Guy and Jack Caprio

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Toured from Mt. Emmons to Peeler Basin to Oh-Be-Joyful Basin on various aspects to about 12,000 ft.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Skier triggered numerous small, shallow sluffs on very steep slopes facing east to north aspects at all elevations. Sluffs were about 3″ deep above treeline and entrained about 6″ of faceted snow below treeline.
Spotted one slightly larger wind slab on Mt. Afley that ran sometime in the past few days, D1 in size.
Weather: Cold temps, mostly clear skies. Light north winds were occasionally producing light drifting at ridgetop.
Snowpack: Felt comfortable moving through lots of complex avalanche terrain with minimal signs of instability apart from shallow sluffs. We encountered a few thin but hard drifts that produced localized cracking and/or collapses. I believe these formed a few days ago during the strong W/SW wind event. About 2″ of fresh snow was evenly distributed across all aspects; we encountered a few minor drifts involving just the new snow onto southerly aspects that did not produce signs of instability.

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5306

Date of Observation: 02/03/2022
Name: Josh Jones

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Cement Mountain 9000′-11800′

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: 0/8 Clear
No flagging observed in CB, was seeing a bit over by Castle Peak blowing from the east.
Snowpack: On a northeast wind-drifted slope at 11300 I was able to get some cracking and few sizable chunks to slide off the previous interface. Snow depth was variable here. See photo-

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5304

Date of Observation: 02/02/2022
Name: Zach Guy and Jack Caprio

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Traveled on E and NE aspects below treeline on Mt. Emmons

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Skier triggered a few small loose avalanches that ran about 200 vert down a small terrain feature.
Weather: Cold temps, very light snowfall, calm winds.
Snowpack: More of the same. Less than an inch of new snow didn’t alter conditions much here. The top 8″ or so is loose and faceted on anything north of due east, making for easy sluff triggering.

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5303

Date of Observation: 02/01/2022
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Up Walrod Gulch and ascended/descended near the powerline avalanche paths.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: I intentionally pushed loose snow down several short but steep east-facing slopes. Small size avalanches that entrained down about 8 inches.
Weather: Increasing cloud cover throughout the morning and overcast with very light snowfall starting at 2pm. Calm winds in this low elevation terrain.
Snowpack: I wanted to see how the faceting process has impacted the shallowest snowpack in the CBAC forecast area. East slopes below treeline have around 8 inches of cohesionless surface facets (1-2mm). Once you transition to the sunny side of east surface crusts start to appear. The midpack remains supportive to boots but shows clear signs of faceting. The snow near the ground remains distinctly weaker than the slab above, but CT and ECT produced no results.

A southeasterly feature had a 4cm melt/freeze crust that was pencil hard above weak, well-developed facets with ice columns present in the facets. Supportive, but faceting snow was found at the bottom of the snowpack. The crust looks capable of holding a small to moderate load, but a large loading event could collapse this structure. Slopes very near due south were a mix of melt forms to the ground or starting to melt out.

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5302