Observations

Date of Observation: 01/07/2022
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Snodgrass TH down to East River

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: nothing new observed
Weather: Clear skies, light winds at my below treeline elevation, and mild air temperatures. I observed some drifting above treeline on Whetstone, Whiterock, and Bellview during the day.
Snowpack: I traveled through an area that is generally fairly shallow compared to the rest of the forecast area looking for signs of instability and test basal weak layers near the ground. Snow depth was around 135cm in locations free of drifting and scouring. No signs of instability underfoot. East slopes in this area had no pre-December facets at the ground…weak depth hoar, 10cm-ish thick, was present on northeast and north. Depth hoar appears to be rounding but remains relatively weak compared to the slab above (see profile). Surface Hoar, 3-5mm in size, is developing on the north through east slopes.

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5223

Date of Observation: 01/07/2022
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Cement Creek. Various aspects between 9,000ft and 11,600ft.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: No new avalanches and taking a moment to look around from Double Top Ridge I didn’t see anything obvious jumping out.

Weather: Few clouds, warm, calm.

Snowpack: The snowpack is very set up and supportive. Big settlement cones on the aspens. Boot pen about 20 to 30cm on most slopes. Closer to 45cm on shaded northerly facing slopes. The sun and temps were doing their thing with lots of thick and/or moist snow surfaces. Found surface hoar down in the valleys and all the way up to double top ridge. It seemed to survive on many of the east aspects and of course on the northerly aspects. West was moist in the afternoon and SH had melted away.

Of course no obvious signs of instability. No collapses or cracking. Heavy snowmobiles jumping around. Didn’t pull out the probe, but HS based off the exposed signposts looked around 140cm. For the most part, where we traveled the snowpack had an even depth. I wonder if we would have observed signs of instability if we could have traveled, the same way, in steep cliffy terrain with a more variable snowpack depth.

Lots of wind effects and wind erosion in the alpine.

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5222

Date of Observation: 01/07/2022
Name: Zach Guy and Jack Caprio

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Mt. Emmons, NE aspect

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A couple of small wet loose slides on SW aspects NTL this afternoon.
Weather: Mostly clear, mild temps, calm winds.
Snowpack: 1 to 3 mm surface hoar growth in wind-sheltered, shady aspects, including start zones NTL.
Dug a hasty pit on belay on a slope that we know avalanched on 12/10 and again on 12/24. The structure still looks surprisingly lousy. The 12/6 depth hoar layer (3mm, fist hard) is still present: it is cohesionless and shows little evidence of rounding below a 100 cm hard slab – a concerning depth for triggering. I got propagating results after about 35 hits.
The structure caused us to change to a plan B descent route. Previous avalanche activity on that slope was not obvious to the untrained eye. The best indicator was snow depth: HS in the flats was 200 – 220 cm, and HS in the start zone was 100 cm. This observation gives me some concern for similar types of slopes such as Schuykill Ridge or Snodgrass that likely saw activity on 12/10 and again on 12/24. We dug about 10 feet below the old 12/24 crown; unsure how the structure changes further downslope.

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5221

Date of Observation: 01/02/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Rustler’s Gulch area (Mt. Bellview, etc)

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Filling in the database with a few more from the 12/31 cycle.

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5220

Date of Observation: 01/06/2022
Name: Evan Ross Zach Guy #jackisback

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Mt Axtell. North. 11,300-9,500.

Avalanches: In 1st bowl. A D3 or very large avalanche had propagated wall to wall across the start zone in 1st bowl during the last round of natural avalanche cycles. This avalanche either broke or limbed the small trees as it ran for about 60% of the defined avalanche path.

In 2nd Bowl. A very large avalanche ran to the historic trim line of the avalanche path. There appeared to be a few mature trees taken out near the historic trim line but the avalanche path wasn’t extended.

The avalanche debris below the shield also took out some older trees and a section of aspen forest.

Weather: Mostly Cloudy, S-1 in the morning tapered off. Very little snow accumulation.

Snowpack: A few inches of very dense rimed new snow had accumulated. Ski pen was in the 10 to 15cm range. 1st Bowl had anywhere from 0 to 3 feet of snow on the old bed surfaces and avalanche debris. In one location just below the crown, there was a 60cm slab that had been rebuilt over on the old bed surface and 30cm’s of well-developed faceted grains. I’d suspect that those remaining facets were better cleaned out below that location. We found no signs of instability throughout the tour.

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5219

Date of Observation: 01/06/2022
Name: billy barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains

Weather: Mostly just a lot of noise with steady, strong wind moving snow around but limited new snowfall with 2″ new and water 0.21″. Wind 10-15 NW and gusts up to 35. The snowpack is at 50″. Cloud cover is obscured and it stayed quite warm overnight with the low 25ºF while the current is the high of 27ºF. All tracks are blown in once again and slides from wind loading are possible.

5218

Date of Observation: 01/06/2022
Name: Zach Kinler

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Helicopter

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches:
Weather:
Snowpack:

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5217

Date of Observation: 01/05/2022
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Primarily Elkton and Baldy Area

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: Bit breezy eh. Obscured sky and strong westerly wind. Mostly S-1 and light snowfall. Heavier rimed precip was accumulating as I headed out in the early afternoon.
Snowpack: Hard to measure new snow given all the wind. In a fairly sheltered area at 11,000ft, there was about 6″ new at 1pm. The new snow was very light and mostly getting blown away. I was able to find a couple of small test slopes where the new snow would produce some shooting cracks and holding up as a fresh wind slab. Otherwise, the snow has already been redistributed from the winds with old hard drifts having previously formed. More forecasted snow will provide more fuel for new wind slab development. It was real blustery out there at near and above treeline elevations and managing wind drifted snow was still one of the main concerns.

5216

Date of Observation: 01/05/2022
Name: Turner Petersen Grace von Mett

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Normal anthracites skin track. Skied sevens.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Natural wind slab breaking 4” thick probably running 50 feet and propagated probably 30 feet. On friendly Finnish. NNE.
Weather: Windy. Stormy.
Snowpack: Deep.

5215

Date of Observation: 01/03/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Mt. Richmond

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