Observations

Date of Observation: 11/19/2022
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: 9,800-12,500. Primarily SE aspects with a couple of variations to NE and E. Augusta.

Observed avalanche activity: No

Weather: Clear and Calm.

Snowpack: The moderate to strong winds from this past week sure has redistributed the snow and affected the snow surface. Surprisingly the snow was still skiing great, even in some areas where the snow surface didn’t look good from afar. We didn’t encounter any wind slab issues off the SE summit of Augusta. While the NE face had some thick drifts from recent cross-loading and looked problematic. We encountered another cross-loaded terrain feature lower down that also looked concerning. This feature again had a big fetch going into a NE aspect. There was a clear area where ski pen went from say 15cm in depth, to 1cm in depth, and back. All stacked on a weak-faceted snowpack. All in all, managing for wind slabs was the primary avalanche problem we encountered. Those wind loading patterns looked variable and that pattern wasn’t easy to describe in one particular way. There was also the slightest dusting of new snow that must have fallen on Friday and it was making it more difficult to identify some areas of harder wind slabs or wind board.

Snow surfaces stayed cold on SE slopes throughout the day.

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Date of Observation: 11/18/2022
Name: Zach Guy Zach Kinler

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Upper East River, Nirvana Bowl on Baldy

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Observed a D1.5 Wind Slab that likely ran yesterday or overnight. Ski-triggered another Wind Slab from ridgeline adjacent to the natural. This one propagated a bit wider and reached D2 size entraining the softer snow in wind-protected terrain as it ran around 600 ft. Debris was up to 5 ft deep.
Weather: Partly Cloudy, felt like January, light NW winds with moderate gusts.
Snowpack: We traveled primarily on S and SE aspects near and above treeline. 4-5 inches of low-density, faceting snow is resting on crusts from earlier in November.  As we gained elevation towards the ridge a thin wind crust was present on the surface. Closer to the ridge the wind crust grew to an obviously thicker slab up to 18″ thick. Northerly winds caused off-and-on snow transport onto southerly aspects.

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5623

Date of Observation: 11/22/2022
Name: Jack Caprio

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: South Fork Crystal River. Traveled on S, SE, and N aspects up to 12,500’

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: 2 small skier triggered wind slabs. 1 was about 5-8” deep, and traveled about 250’. The other was about 3-4 inches deep, and traveled about 100’.

Weather: Cold and clear. Light winds with moderate gusts out of the west.

Snowpack: In the terrain we traveled, the wind slabs were reactive in north facing terrain. We encountered wind slabs of similar size and hardness on S and SE facing terrain and they seemed to be much more stubborn.

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5621

Date of Observation: 11/15/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Mt. Baldy, traveled on E to N aspects to 11,900′

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Intentionally ski triggered a pair of small slab avalanches on an east facing, cross drifted ridge near treeline. The slabs were up to 12″ thick, ~25 ft wide, 4F+ on average. One previous natural on a NE aspect, likely from last week. All small in size.
Weather: Too cold for my toes. Light breeze, no snow transport. Scattered cloud cover. An inch of snow in the past 24 hours.
Snowpack: Found ourselves on a particularly chatty east facing slope that produced numerous collapses and shooting cracks ranging from 10 to 50 feet, failing on a thin, faceted crust (Nov 3). Once we got to a ridge where it was more drifted, we popped a couple of slabs by collapsing the slope while skinning. No other signs of instability on other slopes.

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Date of Observation: 11/15/2022
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Upper Slate. E to NE, 9,700 to 12,000ft.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Several small sluffs or possibly a couple very small wind slabs above treeline.

Weather: Partly cloudy ski in the morning becoming mostly cloudy early afternoon. Calm to light winds and cold temps.

Snowpack: Around an inch of very low-density new snow for the most part, becoming a few inches of new snow above 11,000ft. A little bit of fresh drifting above treeline on the most wind-exposed terrain. Pushed one very small wind slab that was isolated to right at the ridgeline.

The old hard slabs that are hiding out on some previously wind-loaded terrain features didn’t show any obvious signs of instability today, or this past Sunday. In general, as the snowpack continues to weaken with the cold weather, the interface between those old slabs and the facets below continues to become less pronounced. Both the grain size and hardness are often changing gradually between the layers of snow vs abruptly like when that avalanche problem was fresh.

The skiing is still surprisingly good in some areas.

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Date of Observation: 11/13/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Working on a weather station on Carbonate Hill, descended Timbered Hill to Death Pass, traveling mostly on south to west aspects.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A small natural windslab on Carbonate from last storm. D1.
Weather: Light winds, clouds streaming in from the south. Ridgetop temp in the 20’s.
Snowpack: Fairly continuous coverage across all aspects at higher elevations, with the deepest/most continuous coverage on north to east facing terrain. Mid to low elevation southerlies are the only bare slopes at the moment. A couple of inches of recent snow was redistributed by winds above treeline and is now faceting over a variety of wind hardened surfaces. Near surface facets are more developed and more widespread as we descended in elevation; snowpack is generally faceted throughout below treeline, with one or two crusts on sunnier aspects. Snow depths are generally about 12″ to 18″ at 11,000′ and only a few inches at valley bottom.

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5617

Date of Observation: 11/12/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Upper Slate, traveled on N, NE, and E aspects to 12,200’.

Observed avalanche activity: No
Avalanches: None
Weather: High thin clouds, calm winds. Inverted temps this morning.
Snowpack: Not much to add onto yesterday’s obs. Snow surface is faceting quickly. We got several moderate sized collapses near treeline on previously cross-drifted east aspects. Got moderate propagating test results on similar NE facing slopes, 2’ deep on the 11/3 facet layer (see video). Also traveled through a lot of terrain that was lacking any kind of previous drifting or slab formation or signs of instability. We did get one collapse on an east facing, sheltered BTL slope, where a thin crust (11/3) helped propagate the collapse about a foot deep in an otherwise soft snowpack. I doubt this is an issue on sheltered slopes, but it highlights how collapsible that crust is.

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Date of Observation: 11/11/2022
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Baldy Mountain via Gothic Corridor.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Observed a couple of small recent avalanches than appeared to fail in the recent snow. All above treeline; north through east aspects.
Weather: Cold air temperatures, light northwest winds with some occasional gusts transporting tiny amounts of snow under mostly clear skies.
Snowpack: We traveled mostly through easterly aspects up to 12,200. New snow accumulations ranged from 4-8″. Relatively light winds during and following the recent snowfall did not produce much loading; a nearby northwest-facing (windward) alpine feature was still holding much of the recent storm snow (see photo). While ascending easterly slopes near treeline we experienced a couple of moderate-sized collapses; a test profile revealed facets sitting atop the 11/3 melt/freeze crust. The overlying slab was around 60cm thick and remains soft in sheltered areas but could produce avalanches on terrain features with previous drifting. The most recent snowfall made it difficult to visually identify terrain features with previous drifting and stiffer more cohesive slabs. Additionally, we traveled on alpine southeast-facing terrain and found around 8″ of new snow resting on a supportive to skis melt/freeze crust with a foot of dry snow below that with some ice columns supporting the crust to the ground.

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Date of Observation: 11/11/2022
Name: Travis Colbert

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Pittsburg to the top of Cascade. 9,200-11,600. NE to SE to SW.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A few small point releases in the new snow in rugged terrain from Schuylkill to Daisy Pass, but nothing significant.
Weather: Blue sky, light to moderate NW winds, temps in the teens and 20s.
Snowpack: Soft and deep(ish) on the north aspects, with some underlying, collapsible crusts observed while pole probing. 4″ or so of new snow on firm crust on the south aspects. One small collapse in flat, east facing willowy area. Coverage was a little thin in places, but overall, nice skiing!

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Date of Observation: 11/11/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Upper Slate. Traveled on SE to NE aspects to 12,000′.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A few minor point releases and a harmless soft slab that ran naturally during the storm on Mineral Point, all D1.
Weather: Chilly, light breeze at ridgetop, clear skies.
Snowpack: 4″ to 6″ of settled new snow, a little deeper in drifted terrain. Fairly minor amounts of wind effect in the new snow, with isolated cracking in shallow drifts near ridgeline. I targeted a test pit on a terrain feature that was heavily cross-loaded from last weekend’s northwest winds. See photo. I got hard propagating results in facets below a crust near the ground (11/3 interface). The slab was 1F hard and about 2 feet thick. Poor structures like this appeared to be fairly isolated throughout the terrain (based on probing and visuals), likely just in heavily drifted features. We also observed several localized collapses underfoot on low angle east facing slopes near treeline. The collapses were on the same weak layer, but the crust was thinner and without much of a slab above it.  Below treeline shady aspects are soft throughout without slab development and no signs of instability. The fresh snow surface is soft and fairly uniform across the terrain right now..no doubt the facet machine is cranking with our current and upcoming weather pattern.

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