Observations

Date of Observation: 12/14/2021
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: West Brush Creek road to skin up Union Chutes. Terrain south of WSC Peak in West Brush drainage, directly across valley from Teocalli.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Noticeably less avalanche activity below treeline as compared to Northwest Mountains forecast area. Near treeline produced numerous avalanches on north and northeast aspects directly below ridgeline in wind-drifted areas on shaded aspects.
Weather: Broken skies for much of the day with a pleasant period of Few clouds around 2 pm. Winds were light below treeline and looked to be moderate at ridgetop, but no wind loading was observed.
Snowpack: Small Surface Hoar was present near valley bottom but 100 feet above cold sink Surface Hoar disappeared. Snow surface on shaded aspects near and below treeline was faceted but small-grained (.5mm). Around 11,000 feet and above soft, breaker wind-board appeared across the landscape. I experienced many localized collapses, but just a single, loud moderately sized collapse as I exited a northeast-facing profile site (see attached image) which produced many cracks across the slope. I avoided steep, wind-drifted terrain in the area and stuck to simple, lower-angled options.

Snow depth on sunny slopes in the area was around 35cm and 70cm on shaded slopes. Ski penetration was generally around 6-8 inches and boot penetration was to the ground everywhere.

Photos:

5099

Date of Observation: 12/13/2021
Name: Cormac Zachar

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Skinned up the normal route via the woods to the south of the bowls. In the meadow approach, there were collapses and wumphing with almost every couple of steps. Several collapses propagated significant distances outward from the skin track. Once out of the flats, no obvious instabilities were present up to the ridge. Plenty of surface hoar everywhere the sun was hitting. Our skin track only crossed over 30 degrees once, and we didn’t test avy terrain on the descent either. Skied down the skiers left then right of second bowl… No signs of instability while skiing, but only crossed over 30 degrees once and for no more than a hundred feet.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: No new slides. Skinned past the previously reported skier-triggered avalanche in Convex Corner. Appeared to have a 2-3 ft deep crown and ran approx. 75 yards (D1.5?). Avy path was almost identical to the area of transition between <30 and 30-35 degree slopes on the upper third of Convex.
Weather: Sunny, low 30s.
Snowpack:

5096

Date of Observation: 12/13/2021
Name: Alan Bernholtz

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Poverty Gulch area. This observation confirms the forecast from this morning.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: Several old avalanches were observed. Some ran during the storm and some ran at the end of the storm. All were old.
Many cracks were observed on steeper slopes as well as low angle. We only heard one collapse during our hike.
Weather: Mostly clear, a few high clouds, strong solar radiation, no wind and estimated temp around 35
Snowpack: At the top of the skin track we found 100cm HS. 70 cm HST, 4-5 cm of sun or temp crust and 25 cm of facets. Surface hoar covered all aspects.

Photos:

5094

Date of Observation: 12/13/2021
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Various aspects near Kebler Pass and Lake Irwin.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Nothing new. Documented a few older slides from the past cycle.
Weather: Few clouds. Moderate southwest winds at ridgetop with some light transport at times.
Snowpack: Primary goal today was to test the sensitivity of the persistent slab problem on shady aspects. Although it’s getting harder to produce signs of instability than earlier this week, the snowpack is still talking. I skinned over, then jumped with skis on, and then post-holed into four suspect low-angle slopes below treeline. One slope remained quiet, one produced a localized collapse when I skinned over a shallow, wind eroded feature, and two of them produced rumbling collapses after I stepped out of skis and sunk my boot into the weak layer. Slab depths in this area were 75 to 80 cm to the 12/6 facet layer.
Also dug into a southerly aspect near treeline to test bonding to the 12/6 crust. No alarming results and no signs of instability while traveling on southerly aspects.

Surface hoar growth observed below treeline.

Photos:

5093

Date of Observation: 12/13/2021
Name: Mark Robbins

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Up regular anthracites skinner to the saddle, skied off the southside a ways before aborting, skied out 7’s then down around the skin track

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: already reported by Zach K.
Weather: calm, sunny, warm
Snowpack: widespread surface hoar from 10,000′ to 10,500′ or so.
Skied south facing snow, descending from the saddle at 11,200′, at 11 am, which was a saturated sticky mess.
And the wind got into 7’s bowl, mixture of wind stiffened snow and supportive wind board.
No new signs of instability, just all the previously reported widespread avalanches and cracks.

Photos:

5092

Date of Observation: 12/12/2021
Name: Irwin Guides

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Thornton’s Glade

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: SS-ASc-R2/D2-G 70-100cm x 10-20m x 100m running on moist basal FC. West aspect NTL.
Triggered on an ~36 deg planar slope that harbored a nice swath of pre-12/6 FC.

5091

Date of Observation: 12/12/2021

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Camo Glades

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Large slab in an opening in the trees ran a few days ago.

Photos:

5090

Date of Observation: 12/12/2021
Name: Frank Stern

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gunsight Pass Road from Slate River to 9,500′

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Westernmost Climax Chute ran (D2), multiple D1 avalanches on 40 degree slopes on N aspects.
Weather: Sunny
Snowpack: About 70 cm snow, some settling, shooting cracks.

Photos:

5089

Date of Observation: 12/12/2021
Name: Nick Couts

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Our party was starting at Wash gulch TH and crossing below coney’s proper to climb up the refill uptrack on the North end of coney’s. From there, crossing over Anthracite Mesa skiing the W aspect down and skinning back to Slate TH.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: From the North end of Coney’s we spotted a few slides. The first looked to be skier triggered just below the start of “first bowl” Maybe D1.5/2? It appears the slab propagated to skier left and ran along the adjacent rib. Based on the pair of tracks they appeared to have veered skiers left to dodge the debris. Further below two other smaller pockets had released on the convex nose where First Bowl and Convex Corner merge together. Possibly remote triggers from the four pairs of tracks coming down first bowl and convex corner.

Weather: Bluebird, moderate sustained W/NW wind at the top of the Coney’s/A Mesa.
Snowpack: On our route up, there was lots of whumpfing and shooting cracks, and once we got into the uptick saw loads of previous cracks and collapses, some smaller in the recent storm layer and some stepping down to the basal faceting. Our descent down the W side or A mesa saw no sign of recent avalanches or experience and whumpfing. Depth was ~75cm, top half of snowpack was about F and lower half to the ground was about 4F.

Photos:

5088

Date of Observation: 12/12/2021
Name: Travis Colbert

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Up the standard skin track with a slight diversion at the ridge to evaluate untraveled snow for instabilities (see photo). Plenty of collapsing and cracking. I would still be very wary of avalanche terrain that has yet to avalanche. Steady SW wind adding a load to leeward fetches. Descended the northern edge of Friday’s remotely triggered D2, with a good collapse on a stomp turn just off the ridge. Soft, but slightly punchy, wind-affected snow for most of the run. Lots of shattering on isolated terrain features down low. 2mm surface hoar on shaded slopes.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Nothing that hasn’t been reported.

Photos:

5087