Observations

Date of Observation: 01/11/2023
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Couple laps in AMR. North, 10,000ft to 11,500ft

Observed avalanche activity: No

Weather: Continuous snow through the morning hours and starting to taper off in the early afternoon. Strong NW winds and lots of snow transport. Poor visibility.

Snowpack: Measured about 40 to 45cm of new snow in an old skin track. I’d assume that track was put in yesterday. A couple of different storm interfaces in the upper snowpack, with layers of lower-density snow and grapple. Cracking in the upper snowpack become more abundant as we entered NTL elevations or in areas with wind-affected snow. We skied slope angles around 35 degrees and didn’t otherwise encounter anything notable.

5889

Date of Observation: 01/11/2023
Name: Zach Guy and Zach Kinler

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Traveled on westerly below treeline terrain near Pittsburg.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Saw a couple of storm slabs that likely ran yesterday or last night on a cut bank above the Slate. Limited vis, but I could see that there were no valley crushers off of Schuylkill Ridge which was nice.
Weather: Storming hard. Moderate to heavy snowfall throughout the day with gusty northwest winds blowing snow down valley and off trees.
Snowpack: Storm totals near Pittsburg are 50 cm and the snowpack is ~200 cm. No signs of instability underfoot traveling on mellow slope angles. On a west aspect, we tested the 12/20 and 11/28 layers using modified deep-tap ECTs. 11/28 produced a propagating fracture under a 170 cm slab. The layer is 3-4 mm depth hoar. The 12/20 interface is 1-1.5mm rounding facets, and did not propagate fractures.

Photos:

5888

Date of Observation: 01/11/2023
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic townsite obserations

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: Cloudy (all day, all the time) with only light snowfall yesterday but very dense as it reached 32F. Some wind late morning on. Then a bit of snow after dark, pausing until around midnight and then steady snow (4½”) since. Total the last 24 hours was 7″ new and water 0.66″ as the snowpack reached winter’s deepest of 56½”. Wind is calm and the current temperature is the morning low of 18F with light snow. billy
Snowpack:

5886

Date of Observation: 01/10/2023
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Cement Creek trailhead to below treeline hills around Warm Springs.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: Light snowfall in the late morning and ending by noon. New snow a denser 5 inches. Westerly winds blowing at moderate speeds with some strong gusts transporting snow at upper elevations. Mild air temperatures.
Snowpack: While walking through flat terrain around a creek bottom I experienced frequent collapsing running up to 100 feet breaking on a mid-December weak layer (see images). The depth in this area was around 80cm with a 45cm 4-finger slab. Touring around I experienced collapsing on west through north through easterly aspects with northerly terrain being the least frequent. Snowpack tests showed moderate propagating results. In this area and elevation, the terrain facing southeast, south, and southwest generally was too shallow and lacked a slab for an avalanche problem.

Photos:

5885

Date of Observation: 01/10/2023

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Anthracite skin track and a few of the typical runs there

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: It was hard to tell how old some of these crowns were, as snowfall and wind were refilling things fast.

East Bowl crown that looked to have propagated a few hundred feet, ending at skier’s right of Friendly Finish, ~D2

Crown about 50 feet wide on steep North facing terrain in the playground area, NTL, ~D2; visible right across the basin from the usual transition spot at the top of most the commonly skied runs at AMR

Pretty wide crown below Ohio sub-peak/Moose’s Tooth(?), maybe a few hundred feet, East facing ATL, ~D2

(topo attached shows drawn solid red lines for obvious crowns, drawn dashed red lines for crowns harder to see clearly)
Weather: Snowing all day, ranging from light to heavy; occasional ridgetop gusts NTL around 20 mph; also noted graupel-like snow for a good portion of the day
Snowpack: Snow total measured 240 cm in our pit. Top meter of snow ramped up from Fist hardness storm snow for about 10 inches to 1F hardness by the bottom of the meter mark, with no obvious weak layers identified. ECTN, small crack at new/old snow interface, and another about 70 cm down.

On windloaded slopes NTL, new snow was consolidating over the course of the day, with our final observations revealing spots of 4F hardness.

Photos:

5884

Date of Observation: 01/10/2023
Name: Zach Kinler and Mark Gober

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Slate River TH to Gunsight Pass Rd to lower Wolverine Basin

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: No new avalanches observed. Documented several large natural avalanches that likely failed around 1/4. All were on East aspects below treeline and failed on the 12/21 interface. The largest of these slides propagated close to 500 feet wide, bent a few trees over, and snapped some small branches.
Weather: Warm, light to moderate snow until around 11:00am, calm winds up till about 10,000′ where light winds were present. Stronger winds were seen moving snow on adjacent ridgelines.
Snowpack: Traveled on North and East aspects from 9,000-10,400′. 7″-8″ of new snow, a couple of shovel tilt tests did not produce failures at the new/old interface. HS in this area was at or just above 150cm. The snowpack was quiet on this tour with no cracking or collapses observed skinning up, jumping on small test slopes or when taking skis off and stepping down into the pack. A profile on an East aspect at 10,400′ produced and ECTX and PST 40/100 END on the 12/21 interface which was 100 cm deep. The slab here was up to 1F+ and the weak layer was 4F- and rounding. The 11/28 interface was only 10cm thick at the bottom of the snowpack.

5883

Date of Observation: 01/10/2023
Name: Billy Barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic townsite weather.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: Cloudy and mild overnight with very light snow after dark becoming moderate around midnight and holding through the night with 6½” new and a dense 0.61″ of water. Currently calm with moderate snow and 23F after a low of 21F. Yesterday’s high 29F with the snowpack at 52″.
Snowpack:

5882

Date of Observation: 01/09/2023
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Washington Gulch Road to southern side of Baldy.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: Overcast skies by around 11 am. Periodic light snowfall during the afternoon added up to just less than one inch. Moderate westerly winds with strong gusts at upper elevations. Blowing snow and flagging off the highest terrain.
Snowpack: I rolled through southerly aspects through 11,800 feet checking on surface crust formation from the past few days. A barely discernable crust formed on east aspects that slowly increased in thickness as I swung into southeast, south, and southwest aspects. South and southwest terrain developed a 3cm crust. The snow below the crusts remain soft, but faceting was quite minimal; no real surprise as this snow accumulated last Friday.

A test profile on a southeast slope at 10,000′ (depth 175cm) did not produce any propagating results on the weak layer below the Holiday Slab. Weak layers in the middle and bottom of the snowpack are 4-finger hardness and show signs of rounding.

I did not find any Surface Hoar on my tour around Washington Gulch from the humid air this past weekend.

Photos:

5881

Date of Observation: 01/08/2023
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Viewed from Double Top

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A few more previously undocumented avalanches from the recent cycles, sometime between 1/1 and 1/4

Photos:

5879

Date of Observation: 01/08/2023
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Viewed from Double Top

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Extensive avalanche activity from the New Year cycle, especially near to just below treeline. Some may have run during the 1/3-1/4 cycle as well, hard to say for sure.

Photos:

5878