Observations

Date of Observation: 12/07/2021
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Upper Slate River up the standard track to ridge and followed ridge to 12,000 feet.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Visibility was obscured by low-level clouds during my tour so I did not get any views of drifted terrain in the Ruby Range. I intentionally triggered a shallow slab by kicking a cornice on an east slope at 11,800 feet, D1 in size – hardly big enough to knock you over let alone carry you. Max crown depth was 10 inches but only extend downslope 15 feet, slowly ran 150 vertical feet.
Weather: Mostly cloudy skies with low cloud cover obscuring visibility. Sporadic snow showers without any accumulations during the day. Moderate westerly winds above treeline.
Snowpack: I measured 4.5 inches of new snow at 11,200 feet. I walked along an east-facing ridgeline from 11,500 to 12,000 feet assessing slab thickness on drifted terrain and found fresh cornice formation up to 18 inches thick and slabs up to 10 inches thick but slabs quickly tapered off once 20 feet below ridgetop. Cracks ran up to 30 with just a single very small avalanche triggered. Snow available for transport on the adjacent westerly terrain appeared to have largely run dry.

I dug to profiles on easterly aspects at 11,500 feet. One was on the southern edge of east at 105* and I found 5 inches of storm snow resting above a stack of melt/freeze crusts that were connected by ice columns from meltwater during last week’s record high temperatures. This structure appeared quite strong and would tolerate a very large load prior to collapsing (see photo). On the northerly fringe of east aspect at 75*, I found a snowpack that was largely free of melt form grains with several prominent weak layers that formed between each storm during November (see Snowpilot profile).

While descending below treeline I ski cut some tiny facet sluffs on northeast-facing slopes. The facet sluff’s entrained about 10 inches of snow as they ran.

Photos:

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5054

Date of Observation: 12/06/2021
Name: Travis Colbert

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Drove up Washington Gulch to the 403 TH to observe the snow coverage prior to this week’s storms.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: Light flurries as incoming storm system was just arriving.
Snowpack: Shallow and patchy. Coney’s had continuous (and weak) coverage; south and west side of Gothic was bone dry (except for NW aspects); SE & SW slopes around Elkton were dry.

Photos:

5052

Date of Observation: 12/07/2021
Name: Billy Barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Weather obs from Gothic townsite.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: And off we go. Sort of. Generally light snow starting after dark and stopping not long after midnight. There was 3½” new and water of 0.21″- a light 6% density. Wind early but calm much of the night. Currently cloudy with a few little breaks in the clouds, while no wind for now. Yesterday’s high was just 39F, the lowest high temperature in 11 days, and the morning low and current 21F. Snowpack is at 4½” but very uneven as is the case early in the winter. Really not much going on down here but given this winter it is a big deal. billy

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5051

Date of Observation: 12/06/2021
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Westerly terrain near Elkton on Anthracite Mesa high point (Elkton Knob) . Traveled in near treeline elevation band on west and northwest aspects.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: Pushed on a short but steep northwest-facing feature at 11,100 feet and got a very small facet sluff to run a short distance and entrain much of the shallow snowpack.
Weather: Thin, high clouds began to move in by midday. Generally light westerly winds with some moderate gusts.
Snowpack: I have not traveled across many westerly aspects over the recent dry spell so the goal of this trip was to check out some west through northwest features near treeline. All features just north of due west were very weak with just a thin melt-freeze crust or were fully dry. Snowpack ranged from 30 – 60cm deep. Surface Hoar was sporadically present on these windward slopes and generally around 5mm in size. As aspect rolled from due west to southwest, the snow surface went from a thin crust to presumably thicker crusts and then quickly to mostly bare dirt on southwest.

Photos:

5050

Date of Observation: 12/06/2021
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest and Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Various locations around our forecast area

5049

Date of Observation: 12/05/2021
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Driving tours the last two days, Gothic Road, Wash Gulch, near town, and Cement Creek to Reno Ridge

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: Sunny.
Snowpack: See sketch and photos. The southern half of the compass has mostly melted off to dirt or patchy coverage. Fairly continuous snow coverage on NW to N to NE aspects and high E aspects, apart from some brush or talus protrusion in certain areas. I didn’t travel much on snow, so surface characteristics are estimated based on previous observations. A few roadside handpits on shady aspects near and above treeline show very weak, striated facets and depth hoar throughout (2mm to 4mm). Most below treeline locations that I looked at had large surface hoar (>1cm) on flat or shady aspects. About as weak and ugly as it gets.

Photos:

5047

Date of Observation: 12/05/2021
Name: Kyle Juszczyk

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Purple Ridge

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: None
Snowpack: We skied W aspects that leaned N from 11k to 11.5k and were able to find soft snow. There was a widespread sun crust on W-SW aspects up to 11.5k

Dug down at 11,500′ on a WNW aspect 40′ down from ridge line. HS: 105. Increasing hand hardness all the way down. No substantial weak layers, even at the ground. Surface: 2mm surface hoar.

Photos:

5046

Date of Observation: 12/03/2021
Name: Ben Pritchett

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Mt. Baldy, Paradise Bowl.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: It looks like a skier triggered, and possibly took a ride in a small avalanche on the northwest-facing portion of Paradise Bowl. From the other side of the valley, it appears that someone post-holed out of the debris pile. There’s a stand-alone skin track going to the debris pile as well, indicating someone might have made a quick trip to the debris as well.

Photos:

5045

Date of Observation: 12/03/2021
Name: billy barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: There was a slab release, looks like a 1 foot fracture that went nowhere, on the ESE facing end of Gothic Mountain a few days back but too small to get any photo of and only visible in the early morning sun.
Weather: In 4 of the past 5 days there has been a record high temperature, including beating the old record yesterday by a whopping 3½ºC. Everyday since November 28 has set a record for the shallowest snowpack for those dates and this will continue until we get a few inches of snow. Currently there is 1″ on the ground (with this little snow that amount is an average of the snow depth in a given area around the snow pole, though actually this is what is at the pole right now). Yesterday’s high was 55ºF and it has been at 50º or warmer the past 4 days and 47ºF or warmer for the past week. (note that these temperatures may seem too high but i have multiple temperature devices to make certain these numbers are accurate). This winter now has the least amount of snowfall to date of any winter of the past 48 years- not, however, the least amount of SWE given the high density of snowfall.

5044

Date: Season to date December 3 2021

Name: Mikey Alosio

Zone: Crested Butte Area

While we wait for the snow, get yourself in the know. Click to learn about our current snowpack.