Date of Observation: 01/04/2023
Name: Dave Kozlowski
Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Robinson Basin
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: See photos of a very wide propagating persistent slab avalanche in Robinson Basin, likely ran the night of 1/3 to 1/4.
Photos:
5851
Date of Observation: 01/05/2023
Name: Kevin Krill
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Below Climax Chutes
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: I drove over the pile on Mike’s and then around the toe of the debris. Guessing 15-20′ deep for 200 yards. Could be one of the biggest debris piles I’ve driven over in my tenure. The three main paths and all of the smaller ones on lookers right cleaned out. The two on the lookers left did not go.
Photos:
5850
Date of Observation: 01/05/2023
Name: Evan Kezsbom
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Whetstone and Emmons
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: See photos of recent persistent slab avalanches on Emmons and Whetstone. Photo credit: @evankezsbomphotography
Photos:
5849
Date of Observation: 01/05/2023
Name: Nate Pearson
Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Photo from front deck
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Providing additional photo angle of previously reported large avalanche in Red Lady Bowl.
Photos:
5848
Date of Observation: 01/04/2023
Name: Irwin Guides
Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Terrain near Irwin Cat Ski.
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Bender failed on 10 cm’s of small grain facets on the ground. The crown was 4′ at
it’s apex. SS-N-R3-D2.5-O/G Large Natural that most likely ran last night avg. 1m crown started below thin line and connected over to SS L. 11,600K S-SSE aspect 90 cm X 150m X 80m
Numerous naturals size 1-2 UUWW,
Large Natural D2.5 above Robinson Basin ESE aspect approx. 150 m wide, 11,300K, along with another D2.5 below
Pete Rose S aspect 11,700K
Bender SS-AE-R3-D2.5-O FC (90cm x 70m x 150m)
Weather: OVC, 10 @ SP and single digits up top. W 20>10 G 30’s, trace of new.
Snowpack: Stiff stubborn wind slabs up high on W. Unreactive SS across all lower elevations on
the West Wall. Ski quality is still good although ski pen in down to 30 cm’s from yesterdays white room
conditions. E – SE was heavily loaded HS 130-150 cm’s. 4″ of settlement today.
Photos:
5847
Date of Observation: 01/04/2023
Name: Eric Murrow
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Standard skin track up Mount Emmons to Red Lady Bowl and descent down Glades.
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A very large avalanche in Red Lady Bowl that broke full-width wrapping from the skin track ridgeline all the way across bowl to saddle with Red Racoon. Crown up to 8 feet thick. With just a skiff of new snow on the bed surface. The debris was hard to see in the poor vis, but I estimate it only ran half of the potential track.
Weather: Mostly cloudy skies with light snow, generally light wind with moderate gusts occasionally transporting snow.
Snowpack: I dug a profile on a near treeline slope with a depth of 150cm that produced an ECTP 30 and PST end 45/100 on basal facets. I found Surface Hoar at this location sitting above the 12/20 crust that produced PST end 30/100. While exiting the profile site, our group collapsed the slope. Slabs near the treeline were around a meter thick with 40cm being 1finger hard.
Photos:
5846
Date of Observation: 01/04/2023
Name: Evan Ross
Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Washington Gulch
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: The southwest side of Gothic Mountain had a couple of fresh avalanches that likely ran last night or early this morning. Could only see 1 well, it was a cross-loaded SW terrain feature, above treeline, D2.5. Another one of the bowls also looked to have some debris at the bottom but I never got a good view of it.
ZG had previously documented several avalanches off of Anthracite Mesa on January 2nd, and there had been one more D2 avalanche on an ESE slope near treeline since his observation. It didn’t necessarily look fresh, but otherwise ran in the last couple of days.
Weather: Mostly cloudy through the first 3/4th of the day. A few flakes fell throughout the day but no notable accumulation. Moderate winds near ridgeline during the AM.
Photos:
5845
Date of Observation: 01/04/2023
Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Snowmobile to Pittsburg, decided against skiing after seeing the number of slides that had run.
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Quite a few natural avalanches on E and W aspects of the valley.
Weather:
Snowpack:
Photos:
5842
Date of Observation: 01/04/2023
Name: billy barr
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic townsite
Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: Cloudy, windy and mild overnight with the 24 hour snow totals just 1½” and water of 0.14″ with snowpack settling to 46″. Some drifting snow yesterday afternoon and overnight. High temp 20F low 10, current 11. Snowpack starting to settle and set up better. Currently cloudy and windy but not snowing, though blowing snow.
5841
Date of Observation: 01/03/2023
Name: Eric Murrow
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Cement Creek TH along roadway to mid-Cement area toured near ‘Grassy Hill’ and Hunter Creek on westerly aspects.
Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: I observed a few recent small avalanches in lower Cement Creek near the Summer Home group parking area on north and east slopes. While snowmobiling up Reno Road, we came across a natural avalanche that piled debris on the Road from a west-facing slope. We remotely triggered a pair of avalanches open west-facing terrain that broke in very weak snow near the ground (this terrain likely sat very shallow from west winds earlier this winter). Sometimes we needed to hop or stab a ski through the slab to get a collapse…certainly not hard, but not effortless. We may have remotely triggered a small slope while snowmobiling at valley bottom on our way in and noticed it on the way out.
Weather: Overcast skis with mostly light snow with a few periods of moderate intensity around midday. Winds remained light, with a few exposed areas showing signs of recent wind effect.
Snowpack: We mainly traveled on westerly aspects below treeline with depths ranging from 90 to 120cm depending on wind erosion earlier this winter. We experienced two large booming collapses and several moderate-sized collapses. I suspect many of the meadows we crossed previously collapsed during high-intensity snowfall on Sunday. The south half of the compass below treeline in this area has developed enough slab over the past week to overload weak facets and crust/facet combinations at the bottom of the snowpack. Collapsing, snowpack tests (see below), and remotely triggered avalanches all point to easy human triggering of avalanches below treeline.
Photos:
5840
