Observations

Date of Observation: 12/04/2022
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Pavement avalanche obs.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A few natural avalanches from east and northeast aspects of Whetstone and Gothic Mountain. The Gothic avalanche clearly is big enough to bury a person(D2) and a couple on Whetstone looked to be large(D2) as well, but visibility was poor so made my best estimates on size.
Weather: Mostly cloudy conditions in the early afternoon when I made the observation.
Snowpack:

Photos:

5685

Date of Observation: 12/04/2022

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Slate TH up the lower switchbacks of Gunsight Road and back.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Weather: Mostly cloudy, no wind, no precip
Snowpack: Really noisy. Continuous rumbling collapses and shaking trees as we skied up the road. Very little cracking observed. Jumped at the top of several steep banksides with no results. HS at 9400’ 60 cm. Ski pen 5 cm, boot pen 60 cm, Labrador pen to the belly. The slab deposited this week was very supportive to skis, not so much for the pooch. An early retreat was called.

5684

Date of Observation: 12/04/2022

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Marble Point

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Evidence of previous Na cycle to size 3 (>72hrs old)
Weather: OVC, Warm temperatures 45F/7C at the parking area (8800ft) at 1030am
Snowpack: Above 10,000ft the upper snowpack was well settled and fast (4F resistance) with a 10cm skipen due to warm temps and previous wind. Below 10k the sfc is moist with a couple wet loose avalanches (<size 1) and large pinwheels on all aspects. 90cm of recent hst (4F) overlies an ugly mess of facets. Many whumphs in untracked areas with localized cracking.
TP @ 10,800ft, E Aspect, HS 130cm, CTM (SP) x2 dwn 90cm on the notable FC interface.

5683

Date of Observation: 12/04/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Baxter Basin and Cascade Mtn, Traveled on various aspects up to 11700′

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Numerous natural D1.5 to D2 slabs from the last storm, most on North to East N/ATL, with a couple that rounded to Southeast and South-Southeast aspects. Light was flat so it was hard to make out exact sizes and crown connectivity. See photos. Tried getting some smaller terrain features to release without any luck.
Weather: Clouds increased mid-morning. Light winds with light transport at times. Mild temps.
Snowpack: Frequent collapses, some localized, some rumbling across entire terrain features. Slabs are generally 2 feet thick and average 4F hard over our well-advertised weak layers. We targeted a pit on a due south slope that held old snow prior to the recent storms. The crust capping the large-grained facets is about 6 cm thick, and tests did not propagate.

Photos:

5682

Date of Observation: 12/04/2022
Name: Benn Schmatz

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Traveled from Gothic along Rustlers Gulch Road up onto the lower slopes of Mount Bellview. Knowing the severe instability of northerly slopes we were curious how
South aspects are faring.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: R2 avalanche in the top of the bowl on Mount Bellview under the cornice. R1 avalanche seen in Gnarnia on East face of Baldy as well
Weather: Mid 20’s. 5/8 to 8/8 clouds calm wind
Snowpack: Cracking and collapsing was constant during our tour except for slopes that were bare prior to the most recent storm cycle. We picked a slope similar in aspect to the upper slopes of Mount Bellview and found a very cohesive storm slab covered by 11cm of fresh, light snow. The slab is resting upon a firm layer of old snow form October and Novemeber. This firm layer of old snow was covered in a weak layer of weak deformed grains (facets or hoar… hard to tell). This layer under the slab failed an extended column test at 22 taps.

Photos:

5681

Date of Observation: 12/04/2022
Name: Jason Sumner

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Red Lady Glades dad’ski. Standard skin track to goal posts. Standard ski down and out to road.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Viewed from skin track along ridge a decent sized crown and debris field on east side of bowl around 11,800 feet. Pulled out above rock band and ran into upper bowl on looker’s left.
Weather: Thin cloud layer. Intermittent gusty wind once out of forest and onto ridge.
Snowpack: Saw several cracks on way up and had one pronounced collapse during traverse from ridge to goalposts at around 12,000 feet on S/SW facing aspect. Coverage highly variable and quite thin in places due to wind transport but skiing was mostly decent all the way down to road.

Photos:

5680

Date of Observation: 12/04/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Viewed from Slate River Road

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Numerous recent D1 – D1.5 avalanches on Schuylkill Ridge and a few D2,  on E-NE aspects N/BTL. A few D1.5-D2 in Redwell Basin as well. See photos. Looks like most of these ran during the storm on Friday, but a few look crisp enough that they might have run yesterday.

Photos:

5679

Date of Observation: 12/04/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Viewed from Mt. CB

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A few D1.5 to D2 slides on NE and E aspects of Schuylkill and Climax, N/BTL that ran sometime in the past 2 days. Good views of some alpine terrain without any obvious crowns, hard to say whether the winds smoothed avalanches over or were just too strong to properly load the classic start zones.
Weather:
Snowpack:

Photos:

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5678

Date of Observation: 12/04/2022
Name: billy barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Gothic

Weather: A bit more of a ‘normal’ snow Saturday with 2″ new and a more what was once standard water content of 0.12″ of water. Snowpack reached 19½” deep and now at 19″, just slightly under average for this date. It was blissfully calm. Some clearing overnight and warm with the low 16F so far, after a high of 25F. Currently partly cloudy and calm. –Snow was still collapsing on level ground.

5677

Date of Observation: 12/03/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Mount Emmons, E and NE aspects below treeline

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches:
Weather: Light snowfall, light winds.
Snowpack: Went back to some terrain that I had traveled through experiencing widespread cracking/collapsing during the first storm on Tuesday. This time there were fewer collapses but they were louder and some radiated further, up to 300 feet. Forested terrain is also developing enough of a slab for localized collapses in little openings. However, the avalanche slopes that we got collapses on did not slide; it seemed like there was just barely enough ground roughness to keep the ~16” soft slab in place.

Photos:

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