Observations

Date of Observation: 12/06/2022
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Slate River Road to Pittsburg Rollers

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Observed a few natural avalanches. One slab in the storm snow on an east slope and a couple of slabs failed in weak snow at the ground on northeast slopes near and below treeline. A few small loose avalanches on a variety of aspects as the new snow was low-density and “sluffy”.
Weather: Around 14 inches of low-density snow at 1230pm at 10,4000 feet. Snowfall rates of 2″/hour during the morning. Light winds below treeline.
Snowpack: Recreational pow ski day. Snow depth is around 115cm on shaded aspects below treeline. The slab over the early season facets continues to gain strength (1 finger hardness and supportive to boots) and has made for fewer signs of instability underfoot; we often had to hop once while off the skin track to produce a loud, rumbling collapse.

Photos:

5696

Date of Observation: 12/06/2022
Name: Mark Robbins

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: AMR standard skinner

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: New loose dries by east bowl, ski cut storm snow sluff in amr tenure
Weather: Confirmed 6 inches new at base of anthracites. 4 more inches were on the sleds when we returned 4 hours later. Calm winds
Snowpack: Ski cut produced slow moving storm snow sluff which ran 1/3 or so of the slope, see photo. One small settlement descending the skinner trees down low.

Photos:

5695

Date of Observation: 12/06/2022
Name: billy barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic Townsite

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A moderately sized slab released ran off the peak area of Gothic yesterday but the new snow is very light so far so shouldn’t affect anything yet. It was about a 2-3 deep fracture facing east northeast running to ground just below the peak but starting at the ridgetop. It ran about 1800 feet but stopped before the run-out zone.
Weather: Very wet, dense snow Monday morning before stopping, then starting back near midnight but becoming heavy starting around 5 a.m. today but with a very light density balancing the snow out at 6″ new and water content 0.42″. Snowpack reached 24″. Currently obscured and snowing moderately with only light SW wind, though the wind was strong midnight until stopping around 4 before snow started up.

5694

Date of Observation: 12/05/2022
Name: Turner Petersen

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Old crown seen from highway.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: East facing above tree line. Large natural likely failing on ground.
Weather: Stormy

Photos:

5692

Date of Observation: 12/05/2022
Name: Zach Guy and Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Traveled on west facing terrain near and below treeline near Lake Irwin and east facing terran below treeline above Elk Creek.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: On west facing terrain at Irwin: We remotely triggered a small persistent slab from about 20 feet away (See video). The soft slab was up to 16″ thick, and failed on the topmost facet layer in stack of several facet/crust layers that were buried a week ago. The other steep slopes that we traveled near had all avalanched previously. Same for east facing terrain in Elk Creek: all of the paths that we approached slid naturally, probably during the Nov 29 storm.
Weather: Overcast, light snow and graupel, moderate ridgeline winds with periods of light transport. Mild temps.
Snowpack: Frequent collapsing and shooting cracks while breaking trail on west-facing terrain in the 20* to 30* range. The collapses are occurring on thin and weak facet crust sandwiches. Collapses were somewhat less common on east-facing terrain, perhaps because the slabs are thicker, but plenty of collapses nonetheless. There was an impressive amount of graupel in the top 10 cm of the snowpack. The slab continues to get stiffer and more supportive to skis, making for fun and fast skiing on low angle terrain. After clearly identifying that the terrain we were scouting had slid earlier in the week, we felt comfortable riding on those steeper pitches.

Photos:

5691

Date of Observation: 12/05/2022
Name: Mark Robbins

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Pittsburgh rollers main skinner and rollers

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Didn’t see as previously reported but maybe I missed it, guessing from 11/29 or 12/2 storm, natural or triggered from below on skinner?
Weather: Spitting Graupel snow for the first lap and windy, then clearing and calming
Snowpack: 2 very small settlements, guessing lots had already collapsed from weekend tourers. A couple inches of new Graupel snow from overnight

Photos:

5690

Date of Observation: 12/05/2022
Name: billy barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic townsite

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: A little bit of sun yesterday (hooray) as it stayed dry, then cloudy and very warm overnight with light but very dense snow, mostly graupel, with 2″ new and water 0.22″. Wind light to none. There is 19″ of snow on the ground matching this winter’s deepest. Currently a very light snowfall with today’s high 33F (yesterday was 36) and the current 28 after a low of 27. Is it April? –The graupel is making for another weak layer in the snowpack as the current pack continues to collapse.

5689

Date of Observation: 12/04/2022

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Snodgrass viewed from Gothic Road

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Recent small slide just before Tuttle Cabin. See photo.

Photos:

5688

Date of Observation: 12/04/2022
Name: Dan Hohl

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Toured up WA Gulch to Second Bowl. Multiple collapses in flats below Coney’s and on the uptrack.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: One natural D1 avalanche in Cat’s Hat Glades. Bed surface did not appear filled in, likely occurred between in the last 24 hours.
Weather: Overcast skies, warm temps, light winds SW.
Snowpack: Average depth 75-80cm. Fist trending to 1F slab on top of large Facet layer located 45-55cm below the surface. Great riding conditions on lower angle terrain.

Photos:

5687

Date of Observation: 12/04/2022

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: 9600ft-10800, on SE-ENE aspects. Stayed on slopes in mid 20°s to low 30°s steepness in very isolated spots with no overhead danger.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: Despite incredible whumpfing all day long, many of which rippled through snow hundreds of feet away from us, we saw no avalanches that haven’t already been reported here. We did trigger shooting cracks extending as much as 50 ft long.
Weather: Intermittently overcast, light wind at ~11k ridgeline, eventually light snow in late afternoon. Temps were high 20s-low 30s
Snowpack: Performed two ECT tests at sites at BTL and NTL elevations, roughly ENE facing. Season snow totals in both locations were near 1 meter. Storm slab from the past few days was about 45 cm and quickly transitioned from Fist hardness in the top 5 cm to 4F, to 1F in the bottom ~15 cm of this new snow. Below were a few decomposing sun crusts that ranged from 1F- to almost not present (Fist hard) at our upper pit. Below those were 2-3 mm sized facets all the way to the ground; this layer was ~30 cm in depth, and Fist hard.

Lower Pit Results: ECTP 3, Q1/Sudden Collapse @ 23 cm (within basal facets); after more loading, we got: ECTN 14, Q1 @ 35 cm (storm snow-old snow interface)

Upper Pit Results: We prepped and saw that the extensive whumpfing had already collapsed the same layers we saw shear in our lower pit, which unsurprisingly gave us a false stable result of ECT X, but still saw the same problematic structure.

Beyond attempting to nerd out, the snowpack made for perfectly supportive hippy wiggles.

5686