Observations

Date of Observation: 01/28/2022
Name: Zach Guy and Jack Caprio

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Schuykill Peak. Traveled on NE to E to S aspects to 12,100 ft.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Triggered a handful of shallow sluffs and shallow wind slabs, all harmless in size (D1 or less). See photos of a few of the larger recent avalanches that we spotted involving surface instabilities.
Weather: Another beautiful day above the inversion. Calm winds. Clear skies.
Snowpack: Isolated pockets of drifted snow from 2″ to 5″ thick were reactive on cross-drifted northerly aspects where fresh drifting formed over faceted snow. These were all completely harmless by themselves, but in terrain where they could entrain loose snow below, they could grow large enough to knock you over. Wind slabs were easy to identify because the snow surface became noticeably stiffer and grabbier than all the facet pow skiing.
Sluffing gouged into older faceted snow in shallow areas such as near rocks and very steep terrain. Everything we triggered was D1 in size.
Southerly aspects had a dusting of snow on a thick crust that was supportive to boot pen. Crampons were nice for steep southerlies.

Photos:

5289

Date of Observation: 01/28/2022

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Ascended red lady glades and descended red lady bowl

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Red lady bowl, 12,000ft
9am
SE aspect, small crown visible about 75ft below the ridge on a >35 degree slope lookers left of the center bowl
1x, R2D1, Wind Slab, skier triggered, 5cm deep x 4.5m wide, ran on uppermost crust, length ~300ft, stopped as slope angle dipped below 30 degrees
Weather: Sky: CLR
No precious
Wind: Calm
Snowpack: Snowpack was as forecasted with small wind slab on top of the uppermost crust

Photos:

5288

Date of Observation: 01/28/2022
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Standard Axtel skin track up to treeline and descend 2nd Bowl

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: I was able to easily skier trigger small Loose Dry avalanches on sheltered northerly terrain. Most remained in the D1 range, but a few features reached D1.5. The larger Loose avalanches came on longer running slopes where the snow was able to entrain more mass and on the very weak snowpack in 2nd Bowl (previously avalanched at the ground around 12/31).
Observed small natural avalanches on a drifted, east slope of Coon Basin on Mount Emmons, and leeward, northeast terrain on Whetstone’s M-Face. Visibility was too poor to tell if these were shallow Wind Slabs or Loose Dry avalanches.
Weather: Mostly cloudy skies produced around 1 inch of snow by 230pm and skies cleared by sunset.
Snowpack: I traveled on northerly terrain from 9,400 to 11, 600 feet. Sheltered terrain with a deeper snowpack, around 3 feet or more, has up to about 8 inches of weak surface snow for Loose Dry avalanches. In 2nd Bowl, where the snowpack is shallow and weak from a previous very large avalanche, I was able to trigger sluffs that entrained much of the meager snowpack. Facets on this bed surface are well-developed 1-1.5mm in size. The terrain I moved through helped to confine the moving snow and prevented it from gaining much mass. The skiing in 2nd Bowl was fairly unsupportive and poor in the upper portions of the bowl.

Photos:

5287

Date of Observation: 01/26/2022
Name: Keitha Kostyk

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: NE aspect on Schulkill Ridge

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Avalanche-ish :) made ski cut in the new snow just under the high point on the ridge. Ski cut produced a little sluff that, when it rolled over a cliff band, picked up some momentum and more snow and ran really far, really slow. We were anticipating maybe a little movement with the new snow, but we’re surprised by how far it ran.
Weather: Calm, cold, sunny, pretty darn splendid.
Snowpack: Stable, supportive, no signs of instability other than the fast running facets.

Photos:

5286

Date of Observation: 01/26/2022
Name: Zach Kinler and Mark Gober

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Mt Emmons, Kebler to Slate. 9,000′-12,000′

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A handful of small dry loose avalanches in steep, shady terrain. Some natural, some skier triggered on slopes greater than ~38 degrees.
Weather: Fairly cold but it is January. Inversions remained at valley bottom and north breezes kept the alpine chili. Lots of sun.
Snowpack: 2″ of very low-density snow fell overnight. These large, plate-like stellars will be quick to facet on the shady side of the compass. Combine this new snow with the 3-4″ of snow from the previous clipper all resting on a faceted surface from the January dry spell, and the loose dry avalanches on steep shady aspects are gaining some momentum especially below treeline, however, the largest ones observed remain fairly small, slow running and easy to manage at this point.

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5285

Date of Observation: 01/26/2022
Name: Zach Guy and Jack Caprio

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Traveled on various aspects on Mt. Owen and Mt. Afley near and above treeline

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Ski triggered a handful of very thin wind slabs in a high elevation, northwest facing gulley. The slabs were 5 to 8 ft wide and a few inches thick. One entrained enough soft snow to knock someone over. Traveled through Silver Basin where there was long-running debris from ~3 very large avalanches that likely ran during the New Year’s Eve cycle. All three slides ran far into their runouts but didn’t appear to expand trim lines.
Weather: Cold temps, clear skies above an inversion cloud which burned off by late morning. Winds were blowing about 15 mph out of the northwest near summits, causing some light blowing snow.
Snowpack: 2″ or 3″ of very low density new snow. We rode on steep terrain on various aspects without signs of instability apart from some very thin pockets of wind slab near ridgetop. We traveled across several windward slopes near and above treeline (NW, W, and SW facing). The snowpack there is shallow and pretty weak. The snowpack is faceted throughout; you can easily sink a ski pole to the ground on all but the most heavily crossloaded features. Last Friday’s snow (1/25 interface) has faceted on most aspects (.5 mm, fist) or melted into a soft crust on southerly aspects. The 1/21 interface changes from a thick crust capping facets to a thin crust surrounded by facets to just weak facets as you move from SW to W aspects (see photo).

Photos:

5284

Date of Observation: 01/26/2022
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Snowmobiled out Cement Creek to Italian Mountain. Ascended westerly facing terrain to the summit. Descended east – northeast terrain into Italian Creek and reclimbed to the summit and descended westerly-facing gullies.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Skier triggered a tiny Windslab immediately below ridgetop above treeline and released a few small loose avalanches on steep easterly-facing terrain. There was very little soft snow above the treeline on north through east slopes which greatly limited the amount of snow for entrainment.
Weather: Clear skies and cool temperatures. Winds increased out of the northwest in the late morning and blew around the little bit of recent snow. Very little loading was observed. Winds eased significantly in the afternoon around 2pm.
Snowpack: Traveled on westerly slopes at all elevations and found soft, lightly faceted surfaces below treeline and mostly windboard with isolated pockets of soft snow near and above treeline. Northeast and east slopes above treeline have been beaten up by the wind in most places leaving a mix of supportive and breaker windboard with pockets of soft snow. Softer conditions became more common near treeline. Probing north through east terrain from 12,000′ – 13,000′ revealed snow depths averaging around 230cm. Thin, small, and stiff Windslabs were found on west, northeast, east, and southeast alpine features; all were small and only posed a hazard if you were knocked down over exposed terrain.

Photos:

5283

Date of Observation: 01/24/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Rode on northerly aspects of East and West Beckwith to about 11,300′

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Noted 3 shallow soft slabs that ran naturally above treeline sometime in the past few days, D1 in size. Added a couple more previously undocumented old slides from the 12/31 cycle on West Beckwith. I explored the damage from the largest slide on West Beckwith. The crown in the main bowl was about 2,200 ft wide. It’s difficult to tell if it connected or sympathetically released another slide in the adjacent bowl, which would add another 1,500 ft in width. The slide in the main bowl ran about 3,800 feet downhill. It widened the trim line on either side of the track and wiped out about 2+ acres of mature forest at the toe of the debris. I measured the alpha angle at 19 degrees on my phone’s inclinometer, and calculated 18 degrees on Google Earth.
Weather: Clear skies this morning increased to overcast this afternoon. Light winds.
Snowpack: I found 2-3 mm surface hoar growth from below treeline to my high point at 11,300 ft. There’s been enough recent wind effect in this area to reduce the threat of sluffs near and above treeline and replace it with small wind slab potential. I sniffed around a bit for wind slabs and got one rollover near treeline to produce 10 foot cracking about 10 inches deep on the 1/21 facet layer. No other signs of instability. The snowpack gets shallower the further west in the range you go. Near the western end of West Beckwith, snow depth at 10,000 ft is 1 meter. The slab there is faceting away and becoming unsupportive to boot pen.

Photos:

5280

Date of Observation: 01/24/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Viewed from near Lost Lake

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A handful of previously undocumented deep slabs on East Beckwith, likely from the 12/31 cycle.

Photos:

5279

Date of Observation: 01/23/2022
Name: Ben Preston

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Near Gothic townsite

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: See photos of debris and damage from the deep slab that ran off of the east face of Gothic around New Year’s Eve.

Photos:

5278