Observations

Date of Observation: 12/08/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Clear visibility sunset obs from Mt. CB, looking out towards south to west facing terrain of Copper Creek, Teo, Pearl Pass, and north facing terrain of Whetstone.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Similar to our cycles earlier in December, the southwest quadrant stayed pretty quiet out there. A lot of those slopes were bare dirt. I spotted 6 persistent slabs, D1-D2, that released sometime in the past few days out of concave gullies on west facing terrain A/NTL, low on slopes below wind erosion. Gothic’s east face produced a fresh D2 to the ground today. There was a wide propagating crown across Hidden Lake Bowl on Whetstone that looks older (Tuesday storm), and a few of smaller ones that looked crisp enough to be from today. And a cute ‘lil pocket on the southeast side of Avery that looks like it was triggered by a cornice fall today.
Weather:
Snowpack:

Photos:

5710

Date of Observation: 12/08/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Morning rec tour in Kebler Pass corridor, traveled on south, southwest, and northeast aspects below treeline, up to 10,400′

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: Poor visibility of suspect terrain.
Weather: Steady west wind, generally moderate speeds on exposed ridgelines with light to moderate blowing snow. Light snowfall, with about 4″ of new overnight.
Snowpack: Traveled primarily on slopes that were bare during our November dryspell for a low-stress day. Winds were forming fresh drifts up to 18″ thick on cross drifted features that were easy to recognize and avoid. Yesterday’s sunshine formed a soft crust under last night’s new snow, but the riding quality was still fun. As soon as we wandered into the land of the forbidden fruit (NE aspect), we got frequent rumbling collapses, sometimes multiple collapses on the same slope. Test pits produced easy propagating results on the 11/28 facet layer (F, 2-3mm) under a 70 cm slab (F down to 1F). The slope collapsed both before digging the pit, and again after we were leaving.

Photos:

5709

Date of Observation: 12/08/2022
Name: Rob Strickland

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Glady.
Noticeable crust under last night’s snow. The higher we got the more the crust was evident. We could see icicles hanging from the pines about 10,000′ so it must have gotten pretty warm up there.
Skied quite nice regardless

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: I kicked the fresh cornices over the east ridge and it looked soft and had no signs of instability.

Lower on the southerlies I was able to kick off a small wind slab on a road cut.
Weather: windy, snowy, dark. When the doughnut whole comes back it will be much better ;) but it was kinda burly for 21* (haha)
Snowpack: 2″ – 4″ more

5708

Date of Observation: 12/08/2022
Name: Billy Barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic townsite

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: Light snow Thursday morning and then stopping midday until around midnight with light snow until around 4 a.m., then becoming heavier for 2 hours. That stopped around 6 as the wind became nasty. There was a brief period of a bit of sun yesterday but cloudy overwise as it still is now with moderately strong wind moving snow. There was 5″ new with water 0.30″ and now 30½” of snow on the ground. It reached 35F with today’s low 15 and current 16. Snow seems to have started up again but with the wind it is hard to tell but if so, very light (the snow, not the wind). billy

5707

Date of Observation: 12/07/2022

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Avi ob from Irwin area.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Natural avalanche on Mount Owen. East to southeast aspect above the treeline.
Weather:
Snowpack:

Photos:

5705

Date of Observation: 12/07/2022
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Snodgrass skin track to the summit, a brief look at northside, and tour around northwest and southwest start zones.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: I observed a natural avalanche in California Bowl with debris visible from the parking lot, and a few other naturals on the north side and remotely triggered an ENE slope from a few hundred feet away. Several naturals ran yesterday (a few inches of refilled snow) and another ran recently without snow on the bed surface. I expected to find more natural avalanches…this leaves many suspect slopes on the north side of Snodgrass just waiting to be triggered by a person.
Weather: Mostly cloudy skies, light winds, and light snowfall starting just after 2pm.
Snowpack: Snowpack is around 85cm (just shy of three feet) on the north half of the compass. Anytime I left the skin track I easily produced loud collapses; like relentlessly for several hours as I moved through untraveled terrain. The recent snowfall and mild temperatures have allowed the slab to gain strength, but NOT the weak layer. The 1-finger hardness in the slab is producing long-running collapses and remotely triggered avalanches. As I contoured around Snodgrass to the northwest signs of instability and long-running collapses continued.  Southwesterly start zones did not produce any signs of instability and appeared to have a “right side up” snowpack with a graupel layer in the middle. Low elevations southeast, south, and southwest slopes developed a soft crust today from mild temps and periods of sun.

Low-angled terrain is skiing awesome right now…supportive and fast turns!

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5704

Date of Observation: 12/07/2022
Name: Zach Guy Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Washington Gulch

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Lower Washington Gulch: A few small natural persistent slabs that likely ran last night on the small, steep slopes near Meridian Lake.

Gothic Mountain W-NW: This area has seen a few avalanches recently. A couple of D2 on NW and a couple of D1’s on W. Probably ran last night or yesterday during a loading event. Not really any snow or wind today so I wouldn’t expect they ran this morning.

Elkton Knob W-NW: Several small to large slabs that ran on NW to W aspects. They all had snow on the bed surfaces and likely ran last night or yesterday.

Mt Emmons: NW aspect in Wolverine Basin. Couldn’t see debris or accurately judge size from such a distance. At least large in size.

Mt Baldy South Bowl: Looker left side of the south bowl had a large avalanche. SE aspect. The avalanche debris looked soft with fresh snow on them. D2.5

Mt Baldy South Bowl. SW aspect with a notable crown but the avalanche was small in size. D1.5

Photos:

5703

Date of Observation: 12/07/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Rec skiing some small hills near Snodgrass, easterly facing terrain, with decent views of Gothic, Copper Creek, Emmons, and Axtell.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Several recent avalanches, most likely ran during the storm yesterday or last night: A couple large to very large avalanches off of Axtell and Gothic, ~D2.5 best guess. Several D2s off of Climax Chutes. A number of shallow storm instabilities on Gothic, both slabs and loose dry, up to D1.5.
We remotely triggered a small persistent slab avalanche from a couple hundred feet away on a small slope below treeline.
Weather: Felt like spring temps. Some sun coming through broken skies. Calm winds, no snow.
Snowpack: More of the same, shooting cracks and collapses on anything with old snow; slabs here were ~18″ thick over large grained facets. A couple collapses required stomping. Tried to get one frequent flier to release with some stomping from nearby, but it just shattered and stayed put after the collapse.

Photos:

5701

Date of Observation: 12/07/2022
Name: billy barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic townsite

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: It continues sunless with off and on wind, though none overnight. Almost constant snow except from mid-afternoon Tuesday until night but light snowfall overnight (4″, 0.21″ SWE) and very light density. The 24-hour totals are 9½” new and water 0.61″ with currently 30″ on the ground. Obscured again with basically no current snowfall except for a few flakes while calm. Temperature stays mild after high of 28 and the low, and current, 19. No wind. The new snow is light enough to have a limited effect on snow stability, though snowpack was still collapsing in places late yesterday. And the clouds continue. billy

5698

Date of Observation: 12/06/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Schuylkill Ridge. Traveled on SE, E, NE and N aspects to 11,400′.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A pair of large persistent slabs ran naturally this morning in First Bowl, probably sympathetic. From ridgetop, we remotely triggered another large slab in First Bowl which appeared to sympathetically trigger a large slab in Birthday Bowl. Crowns were 2 to 3 feet thick on average, failing on fist hard, large grained facets. Spotted three D1-1.5 natural persistent slabs in Climax Chutes. Numerous skier triggered and natural loose dry avalanches on all aspects below treeline, D1 in size. The light was too flat to see much else.
Weather: Snowfall rates tapered by the time we got to the trailhead around 11 a.m. Light to moderate rates this afternoon, with a short period of heavy snowfall. About a foot of low-density snow accumulated since early this morning. Winds were moderate at ridgetop with a decent amount of blowing snow.
Snowpack: Widespread collapsing and shooting cracks on everything with old snow at the base, mostly just while skinning and no stomping required. Went to a few frequent flier slopes BTL that rumbled and shattered but didn’t move. NTL suspect slopes produced a mix of shattering but staying put and shattering and releasing. On southerly aspects lacking old snow layers, we saw no evidence of slab instabilities except some cracking in the storm snow near wind drifted terrain. Sheltered terrain sluffed readily in the top 12″ of snow.

Photos:

5697