Observations

Date of Observation: 02/14/2021
Name: Cam Smith

 

Zone: Southeast Mountains

Avalanches:
Weather: 4” on the semi-official Brush Creek snowstake
Snowpack:

 

Photos:

Date of Observation: 02/13/2021
Name: Eric Murrow

 

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Whetstone Mountain
Aspect: East

Avalanches: Around 8am two fresh avalanches were visible. A broad and deep avalanche on drifted near treeline east aspect…lots of ground showing in bed surface- D2.5. Another Persistent slab below treeline on an open east-facing slopes D1.5.

Photos:

 

Date of Observation: 02/13/2021

 

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Snodgrass East/Northeast line
Aspect: North East, East
Elevation: 9000-11100

 

Avalanches: No observed, saw evidence of slides from previous day; could only find one trigger point that produced a small collapse.
Weather: Low vis, S1 in the morning, moving to S2 by afternoon. No wind. Temperature in the high 20s.
Snowpack: About 2-3 feet of snow from the last two weeks at F-F+ hardness, which sat on top of a 2-3 inch P- 1F hard layer, which sat on about at least a foot of large grained facets.

 

Date of Observation: 02/13/2021

 

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Cement Creek Road
Aspect: South East

 

Avalanches: Toured out Cement Creek road. D2 avalanche ran from ridge and stopped just after crossing road. Some broken trees. Ran 1500 ft? Road is passable over debris.
Weather: Snow and blowing snow.

 

Photos:

Date of Observation: 02/13/2021
Name: Andrew Breibart

 

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Washington Gulch-Coneys
Aspect: North East, East
Elevation: BTL

 

Avalanches: Observed at least 4 distinct avalanches ranging in D0.5 to D2 between Meridian Lake and the Long Lake T.H. See pictures. These are natural avalanches that appear to have triggered between 02/12/21 and 02/13/21. The one closest to Meridian Lakes appears to have failed on basal facets.
Weather: Obscured skies and light winds at all elevations. S2 to S3 snowfall.
At the car, visibility was minimal and could not see avalanches observed from the road at 10:15 AM.
Snowpack: Ski pen off the skin track in an open are 1/2 the way up was about 12 inches. Underneath new snow, felt a slab 6 to 8 inches deep with faceted grains below (ski pole probe). No cracking or collapsing in this area.

Along the ridge, both of us stomped on terrain between first bowl and our line with no cracking or collapsing. Ski pole probin didn’t find faceted grains. Beneath the new snow, it took a lot of force to penetrate below the new snow. This was a localized probing.

 

Photos:

Date of Observation: 02/13/2021
Name: Zach Guy

 

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Gothic Peak
Aspect: East
Elevation: N/BTL

 

Avalanches: About 10 fresh avalanches off of Gothic Peak visible on billy barr’s webcam this morning. They look like persistent slabs, D2+ in size.

Comments from caretakers in Gothic:  “They all made it down to where the terrain flattens out. Some of them broke trees.  Also a big section of the E Face ran to bare ground”

Photos:

Date of Observation: 02/13/2021
Name: billy barr

 

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Gothic

Snowpack: Steady snow through Friday morning with 4½’ by mid day when snow stopped until just after dark, then steady all night until near 4 a.m. Some afternoon wind moved snow around as well. The 24 hour snow total was 11″ new with 1.01″ of water as the snowpack has reached 52″ deep. Temp. held mild with a high of 29F and this morning’s low and current of 20F. Currently overcast with a light W wind and a few flakes just starting to fall. Conditions are very unstable (and after 4 weeks now of cloudy weather, wouldn’t you be as well?). billy

 

Date of Observation: 02/13/2021
Name: Alex Tiberio

 

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Aspect: North East, East

Avalanches: A few naturals ran during last nights snow propagating widely

 

Photos:

Date of Observation: 02/12/2021
Name: Jared Berman, Jack Caprio, Zach Kinler, Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Zone A and Zone C paths near downtown Crested Butte
Aspect: East, North West
Elevation: 9,000′

Snowpack: Looked at two snowpits to observe snowpack structure adjacent to municipal start zones. Both showed unstable structures with moderate propagating results below 45 to 70 cm slabs.

Pit 1 was dug on the west end of Elk Ave (Zone A)

Pit 2 was dug on the west end of Red Lady Ave (Zone C)

See snow profiles in photos.

 

Photos:

Date of Observation: 02/12/2021
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Evans Basion, Mt Emmons
Aspect: East, Southeast, South, Southwest
Elevation: 9,300-12,300

Avalanches: A few small sluffs out of steep terrain, otherwise mostly poor visibility.

Weather: Near and above treeline were just nasty of course. Lots of snow transport and westerly winds strong enough to make you stumble. Measured about 7″ of new snow early afternoon at 10,500ft.

Snowpack: Other than small test slopes, I didn’t travel in avalanche terrain. Traveled through all the elevation bands, but didn’t spend much time up high due to the wind and weather of course. Below treeline, I got on a number of steep test slopes without results. I think the new snow in those areas wasn’t doing much for a storm slab avalanche problem, and the persistent weak layers were simply too deep in the snowpack, resulting in supported slopes that couldn’t displace if there was a collapse. Got close to other bigger steep slopes, also without anything notable. Many of those bigger slopes had also previously avalanched with crown lines still visible.