Observations

Date of Observation: 12/29/2021
Name: Ben Pritchett

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Red Lady skin track

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Saw one fresh D2-2.5 avalanche below the flat ridge section. This was adjacent to, but lower down the ridge than the skier triggered one from Dec 25. There was a ski track on the ridge nearby, so skiers might have triggered this feature from above. The crown was 2-3′ deep and took out a few trees in a short run of only a couple hundred feet.
Weather: Ridgeline Wind Speed: 10-20 mph
Ridgeline Wind Direction: W
Wind Loading: Light
Temperature: 20 F
Sky Cover: Obscured
Depth of Total Snow: 150 cm
Weather Description: Steady light snow most of the day. We experienced a brief lull in snowfall around mid-day, but it picked back up in the afternoon. Cloudy, poor visibility.
Snowpack: Travelled on southerly slopes and experienced no collapsing or cracking. The snowpack was around 140cm deep near the bottom of the mountain, with the December snow resting on mostly dirt and a few scattered crusts. Mid-mountain I measured around 150-160cm of snowpack, mostly resting on a stout crust capping percolation tubes and large facets.

Photos:

5170

Date of Observation: 12/29/2021
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Washington Gulch TH to Anthracite mesa. Ascended low-angle east and northeast slopes to ridgetop.  Avoided being on or underneath avalanche terrain.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: None observed. Brief views of SW side of Snodgrass and steep, leeward northeasterly shots immediately above Long Lake. Mother nature teased me several times with fuzzy views of Gothic, but never clear enough to read the snow surface.
Weather: Very consistent light snowfall (S1) from 11 – 330. Winds were blowing around 10 mph with gusting to around 20 mph on ridgetop at 10,500 feet. Some efficient loading was observed on to northeast-facing lee slopes.
Snowpack: I mostly traveled on east and northeast slopes below treeline and a few small southeast-facing slopes. No collapsing or cracking observed. Strong, supportive slabs 100-130cm thick exist over weak snow near the ground on northeast and east terrain. Stability tests indicated unstable conditions (see profile). I stomped, ski stabbed, and boot packed into the weak layer above two suspect northeast slopes without result. On southeast features, the snowfall from December has largely fallen on bare dirt with intermittent crusts at the ground.

Photos:

5169

Date of Observation: 12/29/2021
Name: Jeff Danger Banks

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: <30º 9,300-10,000 Flat wetlands w/ willows, SW-S Aspens & bushy fields

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: Some light snow showers and Light to Moderate winds in the afternoon.
Blizzard conditions kicked up by 4PM, got nasty real quick.
Snowpack: 1 Rumble on 5º SE facing slope @ 9,300
Triggered by Skier 1 skinning off the margin of 2m wind slab, with 4 skiers still on the big slab. Skier 1 moved off the edge of the slab into snow 90cm deep and hit the landmine (covered bush)

No other signs of instability on SW-S and traipsing through aspens, wetlands of willows.

5168

Date of Observation: 12/29/2021
Name: Andrew Breibart

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Washington Gulch TH to SW slopes.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: Overcast with light wind to no wind. Intermittent S-1 with no snow accumulation.
Snowpack: No cracking; no collapsing; and no whomping on SW terrain below tree line on new skin track. 48 hour snow accumulation may be around 8 inches. The wind did a number to the road within the 48 hour period 1/27/21. On Monday, the road was benched. Today, it sloped into the natural hillslope

5167

Date of Observation: 12/29/2021
Name: billy barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: More of the same with light snow and generally strong wind. Snow stopped for a couple hours in the afternoon but still no visibility at all and there has been none for the past 6 days except once for 2 hours. That said there was 6½” new snow with water 0.51″ and the snowpack is at the winter’s deepest of 45½”. Currently light snow but the wind stopped about 45 minutes ago. That makes it practically summer, right?. No temperature movement in tht the high was 18 and the low 14 for the past 21 hours.
Snowpack:

5165

Date of Observation: 12/28/2021
Name: Zach Guy and Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Quick afternoon snowmobile tour out to look at 7 sisters and back, testing some small slopes enroute

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: Poor visibility. 7 sisters stayed put. Couldn’t see much else for avalanche terrain.
Weather: Moderate snowfall all afternoon, light winds in valley location.
Snowpack: Deep, unconsolidated snowpack; about 5 feet down to persistent weak layers. Boot pen is about 4 feet. We slope cut a handful of low elevation, south facing test slopes with no cracking or signs of instability. We got one large collapse on a low angle, shady aspect while Evan and I were both wrestling with his stuck snowmobile (see photo).  The wrestle-your-snowmobile-unstuck test did not produce any results on southerly facing, below treeline slope, despite numerous tests in various locations.

Photos:

5164

Date of Observation: 12/28/2021
Name: jeff banks

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Low angle open Meadows on snodgrass

Observed avalanche activity: No
Snowpack: 2 booming collapses on ESE & S @ ~9,800

Very hard to predict where we would get collapses… the usual suspects around willows didn’t produce. Collapses were in dry buried bushy terrain, snow depth ~80cm-1meter. ~9,800ft

5163

Date of Observation: 12/28/2021
Name: Turner Petersen

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Seen from Brush creek road.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Large natural on what must be a 50-100 year path on the south face of Mt. CB. Looks like slide stared near the top of the large v of dense trees above country club couloir. Ran all the way into the dense aspens above the upper loop.
Weather: Storming.

Photos:

5162

Date of Observation: 12/28/2021
Name: billy barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: More of the same, though for a little while Sunday afternoon there was a ‘normal’ light snow and at under 7% water content. But late afternoon the wind kicked back up and was strong and steady all night with generally light snow, stopping around 5 a.m. The 24 hour totals are 7″ new (4½” overnight) and water 0.61″ (0.42″ overnight) and the snowpack is at 43″. About 90-95% of the time if the Gothic area gets wind, we get a decreased amount of snowfall, and this is the case now. Currently it is not snowing but obscured cloud cover and steady wind, 7-10 W gusting to 35. High was just 21F but low was a mild 13 and current 14F. Walked through drifts chest high getting to my solar panels this morning and there is a lot of wind loading once again. It is like building a brick wall but each layer leans out a little bit further each course so eventually it will fall over. billy

5161

Date of Observation: 12/28/2021
Name: Cosmo Langsfeld

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Cement Creek Ranch

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: 5ish inches since 5pm Monday. Windy.

5160