Observations

Date of Observation: 01/31/2022
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Ascended Red Lady skin track to Gunsight Pass to Scarp Ridge. Descended The Shield into Redwell Basin out to Oh-Be-Joyful Creek. We traveled down the line between the Southeast and Northwest Forecast Zones.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: We skier-triggered a tiny, shallow slab above treeline beneath a mid-slope rollover and were able to trigger Loose Dry avalanches below treeline on steep, northeast-facing terrain.
Weather: Cold valley bottom temperatures gave way to milder air temps up high. Thin, high clouds moved overhead mid-morning and departed around 1pm. West-northwest winds blew at moderate speeds transporting some snow, but little effective loading.
Snowpack: On the ascent, I dug a few hasty pits into south-facing terrain on steep slopes, I generally found a stout melt/freeze crust at the surface 3-4 inches thick with ice columns and lenses up to a foot below the surface. Did not travel over southeast-facing terrain, but easterly slopes in the area were completely dry so the stout crusts on the south aspects slowly taper out of existence by the time you hit due east.

Northerly alpine terrain is a mix of wind-board and soft, faceted surfaces. Places touched by the wind, yet still soft, did not produce Loose Dry avalanches, but we did trigger a small slab beneath a rollover. As we descended to near and below treeline terrain on east and northeast aspects the faceting process at the surface became far more significant. Sheltered slopes facing east and northeast have up to 10 inches of cohesionless snow for Loose Dry avalanches with facet grain size commonly at 1mm with some grains nearing 2mm. We traveled on small slopes at lower elevations so triggered Loose avalanches remained D1 in size, but they were fast-moving and gained mass as they ran.

Photos:

5300

Date of Observation: 01/30/2022

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: SE ridge Mineral Point

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Ski cuts along the south east ridge of Mineral Point produced 2 wet-loose slides.
Weather: Sunny, clear, light winds
Snowpack:

Photos:

5299

Date of Observation: 01/30/2022
Name: Ari Lightsey

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Schuylkill Ridge

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: Skier 1 skied across slope near the top of the ridge at approximately 11300′ and triggered a loose dry avalanche 4-8 inches deep (R1 D1.5) that built up enough momentum down the looker’s left gully to do some damage to a person. Skier 2 also triggered a sluff down lower on the ridge at about 10500′ (photo) that due to the steepness of the terrain carried significant speed onto the first bench below the ridge (R1 D1.5). These slides probably would not have resulted in a full burial but would definitely result in traumatic injuries had a person been taken for a ride through the trees.

Weather: Clear and calm, NE facing terrain at 11300′

5297

Date of Observation: 01/30/2022
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Cement Creek primarily between 9,800ft and 12,000ft on a variety of aspects.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:

Weather: Another beautiful day. Calm winds.

Snowpack: Nothing notable or different from the currently reported conditions.

On a northwesterly slope at 10,000ft. There was about 8 to 10 inches of snow for entrainment in a loose dry avalanche. HS here was about 140cm. That tracks about the same for the NW mountains. A sluff in that snowpack would remain small. This location was near the valley bottom and I wondered if the cold air sinking into the valley would lead to a weaker snowpack. While we didn’t travel on these other slopes, northerly facing slopes lower in cement creek and below 10,000ft seem like they would be more significant due to the shallower snowpack and the higher likelihood that a small sluff would gouge and take out the whole snowpack. It’s not often that we see an actual snowpack in some of these lower places.

Near and above treeline we didn’t encounter a concern for old wind slabs over faceted snow. No signs of instability while traveling on what we could find for suspect terrain. I wouldn’t completely rule it out, but it sure seemed very isolated. Any of the wind-board that I dug into was already faceting and those slabs seemed like they were older than last Thursday’s wind event. These elevations are really wrecked by previous wind events and there just hasn’t been much snow available for transport.

Photos:

5296

Date of Observation: 01/29/2022
Name: J T

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Redwell east shoots

Observed avalanche activity: Yes

Avalanches: Kicked off a sluff on a north facing NTL shoot @35-40 degrees. Started small and ran the full length of the slope entraining a lot of snow, I would call it a loose snow avalanche. Appeared to be newer snow sliding on a previous crust layer.

Photos:

5295

Date of Observation: 01/29/2022
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Purple Ridge on 1/28 and Poverty Gulch on 1/29. N to E 9,500ft to 11,700ft.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: Miner sluffing. A couple of thin, and very small wind slabs from previous days. 1 thin wind slab that was skier triggered today and only a couple inches thick, running more like a sluff.

Weather: Beautiful, sunny and mostly calm wind.

Snowpack: The weakening snow surface continues to offer great skiing where it hasn’t been too affected by previous winds. Sluffs in the area were all small. Lots of good-looking tracks around the area without notable avalanche results other than the small surface sluffs and the 1 thin wind slab thing. Looking down the ruby range, there were some other areas where it looked like you may be able to find a thin wind slab problem.

Photos:

Date of Observation: 01/29/2022
Name: Jack Caprio

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic Mountain. Traveled on south and east aspects up to 12,600’

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: 1 Skier triggered D1 loose dry avalanche on a NE facing slope which sympathetically triggered a D1 wind slab on a ESE facing slope across the bowl. The wind slab was about 2-6 inches thick and propagated about 25 feet. The avalanches were small in size but ran through the some consequential terrain that would have been undesirable to take a ride in.

Weather: Sunny and clear. Calm winds.

Snowpack: NE facing alpine terrain skied great. Recent NE winds blew snow upslope and creating textured “doppel” snow. This terrain did not contain any slab, making the main avalanche problem loose dry sluffs.

E and SE alpine slopes have been loaded by recent winds creating isolated pockets of small winds slabs.

Photos:

5293

Date of Observation: 01/29/2022
Name: Andrew Breibart

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Washington Gulch Winter TH to Coneys via usual skin track

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Schukill Ridge-Wind slab, which appears to be skier triggered. Did not see this picture in Zach Guy’s obs. I saw another D1 wind slab that appears to be skiered trigged but I missed that photo op.
Sluff-Scarp Ridge
see photos.
Weather: calm, clear, and hot.
light breeze on ridge.
Snowpack:

Photos:

5292

Date of Observation: 01/28/2022
Name: Eric Roberts/ Ben Ammon

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: 0800-16:45
We toured from Snodgrass TH towards “El Nacho”, descending into Queen Basin. We traveled along the southern ridgeline of White Rock Mountain and descended towards Copper Creek, into Gothic and back to Snodgrass TH.
No major incidents while encountering a variety of conditions. We did not conduct any formal snow tests.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: During our tour, a hard slab was remotely triggered from approx 50 ft. downslope of an near a 34°Convexity, adjacent to White Rock Mountains southern ridgeline at 12,590’.
Crown ranged from 2”-12”, averaging 8”, 40’ in width.
This potential wind slab moved with building energy as it slid approx. 300’ downslope.
Failure plane was above a stout Melt-freeze crust on small facets. (Not measured)
Skier was not affected, but anyone could have been put off balance if on slope.
Weather: Clear skies AM/PM with valley fog (8,000’) early morning out of forecast area to the south
Calm winds with sporadic, light NW winds ATL
-8°F @ 9,300 (0800) : strong inversion NTL
NO precipitation
Snowpack: Snowpack was a mixed bag at all elevations with the best quality snow being held in wind-sheltered terrain in pockets,
North facing ATL-NTL.
We encountered widespread, audible collapsing BTL initially touring out of East River, but encountered localized collapsing in exposed terrain ATL and along ridge lines.
Wind-packed pockets have slab quality and desperately want to slide but potentially a lack of continuity with some slope to keep them stubborn on exposed, North facing terrain.

Photos:

5291

Date of Observation: 01/28/2022

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Owen

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Rider triggered small wind slab. Broke after landing small cliff drop propagated fairly wide as seen in photo.
Weather: Sunny
Snowpack: Wind affected

Photos:

5290