Observations

Date of Observation: 01/09/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Scarp Ridge to Oh-Be-Joyful Peak, viewed from Schuykill Ridge

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A few more that we missed from the helicopter, ran late in the cycle around 12/30 or 12/31.

Photos:

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Date of Observation: 01/09/2022
Name: Andrew Butterfield

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: SE end of the NW zone. Started at 9400′ and climbed to 11500′ on S, SW and SE aspects.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A couple small loose wet tumblers below a few rock and cliff bands. Looked to be just the recent snow shedding off with solar warming. Nothing else to note.
Weather: Pleasant and sunny. No wind until I hit the ridge and wind on the ridge was light (5-10ish mph tops).
Snowpack: HS was hovering around 110 cm leaving the sled and tapered up to 140+ cm closer to the ridge. I didn’t pull my probe out to find exact snow depths near the top of the ridge. New snow depth varied from around 10 cm down low to 15+ cm up higher. Trail breaking was incredibly easy all the way up, supportive to skis and boot. Looked to be small drifts on more easterly aspects, in the usual cross-loaded terrain, and ski pen was marginally deeper on aspects that had an E tinge, but nothing substantial. The sun/ warm temps have already worked on the snowpack on the sunnies and continued to do so today. No signs of instability on anywhere I traveled in my tour. Looking across the valley, true westerly aspects ATL were pretty stripped and the cross-loaded gullies held the majority of snow on W facing terrain.

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Date of Observation: 01/09/2022
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Anthracites

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: An unreported avalanche below treeline on a northeast-facing slope from near the middle portion of the Anthracites skin track. Did not inspect the crown, but it hammered the typical skin track breaking at least one tree, 5 inches in diameter, and toppling several others over. Crown looked around 4 – 5 feet thick. I suspect it ran towards the end of holiday storms around 12/30. This is the second time this winter that the Anthracite skin track has been impacted by a natural avalanche.

Small natural Wind Slab from 1/8 beneath a cornice in East Bowl.
Weather: Sunny skies and reasonable temperatures above the inversion. Light winds at ridge top.
Snowpack: I looked for buried surface hoar in several spots on north and northeast aspects and didn’t find it. Traveled through a northerly near treeline feature that often forms Wind Slabs and found only soft storm snow. No cracking in storm snow or signs of instability in terrain with snow depths well over 2 meters.  Southerly slopes below and near treeline became moist by the afternoon.

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5231

Date of Observation: 01/09/2022
Name: Zach Guy and Jack Caprio

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Schuykill Ridge, NE to E aspects to 11,400 ft.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A handful of small wind slabs on Peeler Peek ran naturally yesterday, D1 soft slabs. Added some more previously undocumented slides from the holiday cycle, details below, and took a closer look at some that we’ve already reported. Slides on Yogi’s snapped trees up to 12″ in diameter. We checked out one of the crowns in the Great Wide Open. The crown averaged about 5 to 6 feet thick, up to 15 feet where it connected to a cornice above it. In the deepest part of the crown, the failure layer was 2mm in size, pencil minus in hardness below a knife hard slab. At an average part of the crown, the failure layer was 2 to 3mm in size, 4F in hardness. The layer was right at the ground.
Weather: Beautiful day! Cold, calm, clear.
Snowpack: 6″ to 8″ of low-density new snow produced shallow sluffing in steep terrain, otherwise no signs of instability. Didn’t see surface hoar preserved below the new snow in a few hand pits, although the current low-density snow surface will surely facet over the next few days.
Probed into the start zone and upper track of a path that ran early in the holiday cycle, likely on 12/24, as well as on 12/10. I can feel the 12/6 layer still, but it is buried by a 200 cm slab now. I probed and dug hand pits in the start zones of several paths that ran late in the cycle (guessing 12/30 and 12/31). HS was 100 to 130 cm, and the slides went at the ground and completely wiped the 12/6 layer off the slope. The snowpack structure in those hand pits was just consolidated storm snow to the ground.

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5230

Date of Observation: 01/09/2022
Name: Andrew Breibart

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Snodgrass trailhead to weather station to East River road

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Two avalanches on E and SE aspects
Weather: cold in the shade and hot in the sun. clear. calm.
Snowpack: New snow was about 6 inches. At the drop in, HS ranged between 135 and 170 cm with facets at the bottom. A few slow moving sloughs in storm snow while skiing the lower 1/3 of the run in the trees.

Photos:

5229

Date of Observation: 01/08/2022
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Washington Gulch, just before Coneys. NE 9,500-10,700ft.

Weather: Calm wind, mostly cloudy sky, Snowing throughout most of the day with several heavy pulses. The sun made its way through the clouds a few times with a bit of a greenhouse effect. 25cm of low-density new snow at 2:30 pm at 10,600ft. About 15cm of new snow on the shady side of the car back at the trailhead.

Snowpack: HS at 9,700ft was around 160cm, and increased to around 190cm at 10,600ft. The snowpack was deep everywhere we traveled and we observed no signs of instability. We dug one pit near our highpoint with a deep and progressively stronger snowpack over 15cm of 3-4mm faceted grains that were 4F hard. No SH under the new snow at that location. No CT results in the upper 100cm of the snowpack.

We chose to avoid one steep slope in the upper 30-degree range where a trained eye could see that there had been past avalanche activity. No crown visible, but snow piled on the uphill sides of the trees below.

5228

Date of Observation: 01/08/2022
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Standard up-track on Mount Emmons to summit. Descended glades to the gravel pit.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: none
Weather: Light to moderate snowfall from 11 – 130. Around 130 precip rates increased noticeably to the S2-S3 range. New snow accumulations ~8 inches at 11,500′ around 230 (I expect several more inches accumulated after I left). Winds remained light with some moderate gusts below treeline, but above treeline westerly winds increased to moderate speeds with a few strong gusts. Observed drifting snow above treeline.
Snowpack: Above treeline westerly winds drifted snow into soft slabs on east and southeast features. I was able to find drifts up to 18″ thick immediately below small cornices and I was able to produce cracking up to 15 feet. Visibility was extremely poor so I wasn’t able to decipher how extensive drifting was further downslope.  Near treeline features in this area revealed far less drifting than above treeline.

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5227

Date of Observation: 01/08/2022
Name: Benjamin Schmatz

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: N/A

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather:
Snowpack:

Photos:

5226

Date of Observation: 01/08/2022

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Kebler TH to the gravel pit. Climbed to the upper meadows on Red Lady glades (9,400-11,100 feet; SSE aspect).

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: Upper 20’s and snowing. Steady SSW breeze, maybe 10mph. Snow vacillated between big, fluffy flakes and rimed snow.
Snowpack: Stout, supportable crust under 8-10 cm of new snow. A little better than “dust on crust,” but definitely didn’t need my 116mm skis.

5225

Date of Observation: 01/07/2022
Name: Frank Stern

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Washington Gulch, 10,000′ to 11,000′

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: No recent avalanches.
Weather: Sunny
Snowpack: Wind effected everywhere except dense trees. No collapsing or other movement.

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