Observations

Date of Observation: 02/12/2021
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Upper Cement
Aspect: East, South East
Elevation: BTL :9700 – 10900′

Avalanches: From 75 feet away, we remotely triggered a persistent slab that failed on depth hoar near the ground, about 2.5′ thick. The avalanche was small in size (D1) because it was on a small terrain feature. See photo.
Weather: Calm winds where we traveled, audible evidence of stronger winds aloft. Very light snowfall with a few, shortlived moderate pulses. About 2″ storm total.
Snowpack: Traveled to the shallowest part of our forecast area and found the depth hoar layer about 50 to 80 cm down, (12/10 layer) is very sensitive to human triggering. We experienced large, rumbling collapses and shooting cracks on almost every slope we crossed (SE and E aspects). Shooting cracks would span entire slopes and through mature aspens. Collapses would visibly shake trees several hundred feet away.  Say no more, snowpack, we’ll stick to low angle terrain.
In Lower Cement Creek (down valley from Deadman’s Trailhead), snow depths are still quite shallow and there doesn’t appear to be enough volume in the start zones or tracks for natural activity to hit the road yet in most terrain

Photos:

Date of Observation: 02/12/2021
Name: billy barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Gothic Mountain

Weather: There was no snow from sunrise yesterday until around 4 a.m. this morning when it started moderately. New snow so far of 3½” nd water content 0.24″ as the snowpack reaches 45″. Currently obscured cloud cover with moderate snow and no wind. Mild weather holds with the high 33F, low 18F and current 21F. I did hear a slide run off of Gothic but that straight face runs regularly and is not really much of an indicator. Unless you are right under it. Which I discourage. Therefore there is a high hazard for fools.

Date of Observation: 02/11/2021
Name: Alex Tiberio

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Gothic Mountain
Aspect: South East
Elevation: ATL

Avalanches: Natural Avalanche around 2/11. (CBAC Note: Best estimate from these photos is that a wind-loaded slab released near ridgelines and further stepped down into a persistent slab avalanche below the cliffs. This avalanche appears to be large to very large in size.)

Photos:

Date of Observation: 02/11/2021
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Gothic and Baldy
Aspect: South East, South, South West
Elevation: near and above treeline

Avalanches: While binocular-ing from town I spotted a couple recent avalanches. Two avalanches on the southwest side of Gothic on drifted features and another in Rock Creek Bowl of Baldy. See pictures

Photos:

Date of Observation: 02/11/2021
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Mt. Emmons
Aspect: East, South East, South

Avalanches: Fresh-looking persistent slab in Evans Basin, likely ran today, on a SE aspect ATL, D2. A few small wind slabs above treeline ran today. Also some loose dry and loose wet sluffing.
Weather: Spring-like temperatures. Moderate to strong W/NW winds once we emerged above treeline, with periods of strong wind transport. Mostly to partly cloudy skies.
Snowpack: Snow surfaces got moist on below treeline southerlies. Easy to produce cracking in wind drifted features, about a foot thick.

Photos:

Date of Observation: 02/11/2021
Name: billy barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains

Weather: Light snow yesterday morning, then a pause in the afternoon until more snow towards sunset, then only light snow overnight with the 24 hour total of 4″ new and 0.30″ of water with the overnight snow 6% water while late afternoon was 9%. Currently mostly cloudy and calm as the snowpack reached 44″ deep. Temperature just reached freezing with the morning low 18F and current 20F as the wind stays calm. Since Jan. 17 there have been just 2 days that were clear or partly cloudy all day.
Snowpack:

Date of Observation: 02/10/2021
Name: Billy Barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Gothic Townsite
Aspect:
Elevation:

Weather: So, i guess this is what snow looks like. Vaguely familiar. –Moderate snow much of the night (8″) after light snow during the day Tuesday so the 24 hour total is 9″ new with 0.61 water. Snowpack has reached the winters deepest of 42″ (average depth for this date is 49″). There was a pause in the snow an hour ago and now starting up very lightly. Sky is overcast with no wind. Temperature holding overnight between 21 and 22F after a high of 31F on Tuesday. billy

Date of Observation: 02/10/2021
Name: Cosmo Langsfeld

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location:
Aspect:
Elevation: 9250′

Weather: 1″new snow overnight

Date of Observation: 02/09/2021
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Snodgrass
Aspect: North East, East
Elevation: 9,400-10,500

Weather: Overcast. Very light snow through most of the day. 1″ new. Calm winds

Snowpack: Mostly managing the avalanche problem through terrain selection. We skied in the mid to low 30-degree range and avoided higher consequence or more likely areas to trigger. In the end, we didn’t find any obvious signs of instability, confidence was improving, though we didn’t let that change our mindset for the day. For the areas we traveled, I would have higher confidence saying the avalanche problem was not widespread, but I’d have lower confidence in trying to say whether it is isolated or specific in the terrain. The snowpack structure was variable, mostly due to previous wind and avalanche events. Given that variable snowpack structure, it’s hard to say what it would take to further activate the avy problem. HS for the area traveled was in the 85 to 120 HS range. Soft slabs of various strength covered the January interface.

Date of Observation: 02/09/2021
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Happy Chutes, East River
Aspect: East
Elevation: BTL

Avalanches: Saw a few more slides below treeline that appeared to have run in the last few days, probably over the weekend. A D1 slab in Happy Chutes and a D2 and D1 on the east side of Mt. Crested Butte.

Photos: