Observations

Date of Observation: 03/10/2022
Name: Zach Kinler

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Kebler Pass trailhead to Elk Creek, toured up ridge above the creek. 9,000 ft-10,500 ft

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: No new avalanches observed on this tour. Very limited views into the surrounding upper elevation terrain.
Weather: Broken skies and higher clouds gave way to low clouds, moderate snow and some wind around 2:30 as a squall moved in. Temps remained quite chilly, felt more like January than March.
Snowpack: Walked around and jumped on a number of below tree line, northeasterly start zones, most of which avalanched early in the late February cycle. Generally, a soft 60-70 cm slab is resting on the bed surfaces in this zone. Bed surfaces themselves were a variably thick 1 finger hard crust capping 4 finger, 2 mm facets which do appear to be gaining strength. Very few signs of instability were observed underfoot or in a test pit other than 1 small leeward feature which had around 2ft of drifted snow and produced some small cracks in the new snow. No collapses or cracking were observed on the deeper weak layers on either slopes that avalanched or in-tact slopes.

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5474

Date of Observation: 03/09/2022
Name: Zach Kinler

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Slate River to Pittsburg, standard uptrack and descent on the rollers. 9,000 ft -10,600 ft.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: No new avalanches were observed. Vis was poor so could not see into the surrounding terrain.
Weather: Overcast, temps in the 20s, very light snowfall throughout the tour with accumulation less than an inch. Just after 2:00 SW winds picked up and started knocking snow bombs off the trees below treeline. Moderate to heavy snow began to fall around 4:30.
Snowpack: HST only 4.5″ thus far with no instabilities seen in new snow. Traveling primarily on slopes facing E-N below treeline, I was targeting the mid-February weak layer sensitivity in spots that previously avalanched as well as in-tact slopes. The snowpack was very quiet with no collapsing or cracking in new snow or on Feb facet layer. Slopes that did not slide in late February have a slab just over 100cm thick, up to 1F+ hard, while a slope that slid had a much softer slab(F-4F-) and about half that thickness. Tests in both areas show stubborn results with hard propagation on full depth slopes and ECTN results on bed surface slopes where the slab is thinner and softer. The February facet layer is still soft(F hard) whether the slopes slid or not with a thin crust capping 2mm facets on the slopes that slid, these layers will be tested with more loading. Easy propagating results were observed in one pit on a NNE aspect where small facets were found at the 3/5 interface however no other signs of instability were observed on this layer. May be one to watch in the future on northerly slopes.

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5473

Date of Observation: 03/09/2022
Name: billy barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic Townsite

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: Light snow starting before midnight and continuing all night but with just 2½” new and water 0.16″ No wind and overcast sky while cool with the low 7F and current 11. Snowpack is at 67″.

5472

Date of Observation: 03/08/2022

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: NW aspect, 10900 ft.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Slab avalanche broke 3 feet above skier, and carried him briefly for 3 or 4 feet before he self arrested. D1 in size.

Photos:

5471

Date of Observation: 03/08/2022
Name: Josh Jones

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic Mountain W-SE 9500-12200

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A D1 windslab(?) observed lookers left of the Spoon SE aspect 10700~.
2 wind slabs observed on Baldy. SE aspect near the ridge. One released during our ski in between 11 and 5 PM.
Weather: 13 Degrees
Light NW wind
4/8 Skycover
Snowpack: SW aspects had 4-8″ of low density snow on top of a solid meltfreeze layer.

SE aspects were similar until we hit NTL and ATL elevations. Obvious deeper drifts below ridgeline. No signs of cracking or or signs of instability but noticed the windslab was present. 2-4″ thick.

Below 10500′ on sun exposed aspects SE-SW, observed already crusted up snow with crusts ~1-3″ thick

5470

Date of Observation: 03/08/2022
Name: Irwin Guides

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Viewed from Irwin Tenure

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: E bowl anthracites observed what was most likely a natural WS from
Irwin in the AM D1 potentially?

E face Ruby/Owen ridge above green lake. There was a natural wind slab 100′
X 500 below the ridge observed in the AM, then sometime after 1400 it ran again failing higher on the slope.
2-3′ X 200′ X 800′ almost to green lake.
Weather:
Snowpack: 3″ of settlement since the storm ended. No signs of instability after testing the PS structure on the west wall.

Photos:

5469

Date of Observation: 03/08/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Traveled on flat or east facing terrain to 11,400 ft. in West Brush Creek

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Good views of lots of terrain in West Brush up towards White Mtn, and I did not see any natural activity from this past storm. However, there were a handful of small soft slabs that ran recently near valley bottom near the confluence of Middle and West Brush Creek. One of them appeared to be remotely triggered today by a snowmobile. The rest ran naturally sometime in the past couple days on east and north aspects.
Weather: Mostly clear skies, calm winds where we traveled; occasional light drifting on high peaks like Teo. Cold day.
Snowpack: 12″ of settled storm snow in the Union Chutes area. We saw numerous shooting cracks while snowmobiling flat terrain in valley bottom, a couple of them shook willows or small tree branches. The most interesting one I triggered from across a creek; the failure must have crossed a snow bridge and collapsed the opposite slope (east facing). On skis, we produced two collapses on east facing slopes around 10,000 ft. Both collapses required some hard stomps to punch through the mid-slab crust first. Most of the steep terrain around here avalanched with the last cycle. The one bedsurface we traveled on did not appear to have enough slab to be problematic; it did not produce signs of instability on slope angles up to 40 degrees. I also tested a few south and west facing terrain features without any signs of instability.  Obvious signs of instability also waned as we climbed to near treeline elevations on E/NE, although the structure is clearly poor from pole probing.

Photos:

5468

Date of Observation: 03/08/2022
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Northwest Mountains & Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Pavement observations.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Observed a couple of fresh avalanches off Scarp Ridge, Axtel’s 5th Bowl, and a south-facing slope between Red Lady and Coon.

Photos:

5467

Date of Observation: 03/08/2022

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Red Lady skintrack with 2 laps in the bowl.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A couple of very small windslabs just off the ridge around Gunsight Pass along with a little fresh (soft) debris in the bowl on S & SE aspects.
Weather: Bluebird & cold with a light wind shifting from NW to SW to W.
Snowpack: The new snow has consolidated a bit since Sunday but didn’t feel particularly slabby. No obvious signs of instability, even while breaking a new trail along the upper ridge below the summit.

Photos:

5466

Date of Observation: 03/08/2022
Name: Than Acuff

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Hwy 135

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Small persistent slab that looks like it ran naturally from yesterday afternoon’s winds.
Weather: Some blowing snow off of Whetstone this morning.
Snowpack:

Photos:

5465