Observations

Date of Observation: 02/09/2021
Name: Eric Murrow Zach Kinler

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Snodgrass north side
Aspect: North, North East, East
Elevation: 9,400′ – 11,200′

Avalanches: nothin new observed…visibility obscured much of the day.
Weather: Mild temperatures, overcast skies, and light to very light snowfall. 1.5″ new at 4pm.
Snowpack: We ascended normal skin track and wandered a bit off the track near northerly features that do not see traffic without signs of instability. Traversed across the top of a handful of north-facing start zones that do not appear to have seen many if any people in the past 4 or so days. The mid-January weak layer is down about 50cm on east and northeasterly aspects between 10 and 11k. Pole probing required a bit of sensitivity to feel where Jan weak layer was while traveling across terrain. Poked a quick hole in a sheltered spot around 10,300′ and found HS around 125cm. Test results produced no result or moderate ECTN scores on mid-January weak layer; the overlying slab was around 50cm and up to 1 finger hard. Looking at the mid-January weak layer facets showed some slight signs of rounding and increased hardness. Early December weak layer produced moderate ECTP results without any signs of increased hardness, still only F+ hard Depth Hoar.  No signs of instability while traveling through small slopes into the low 30 degrees in steepness. Pole probing in shallower places in the area due to wind erosion showed a generally weak snowpack.

Date of Observation: 02/09/2021

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Taylor Park
Aspect: North, North East
Elevation: 9400-12100ft.

Avalanches: (I realize Taylor Park is outside of the CBAC forecast area, but figured since it’s close and most easily accessed through our county I’d provide some basic observations, if appropriate).

No avalanches observed due to slopes traveled through being less than 30 degrees in pitch, and low visibility preventing us from seeing other surrounding peaks.

Multiple small-large collapses in low angle terrain. 2 slab fractures/collapses on wind-loaded convexities, with both slopes in the 28-30 pitch at their steepest, and cracks propagating 30-60 feet. On inspection of the second collapse, 1F hard wind slab appeared to have broken on basal facets. The snow pack here was deeper than anywhere else probed during the tour, about 3 feet.
Weather: Low visibility, S1, winds estimated at 0-20 mph, temps ranging from roughly 30-20 degrees.
Snowpack: Very variable! Ranges from a few inches to about 3 feet. In many places the entire snowpack was faceted through. In some places we found F-1F slabs on top of facets. In a few isolated wind tunnels we found P hard slabs that we couldn’t get to collapse or crack with two people jumping on. Overall it appeared that the western portion of Taylor park did not receive much of the recent snow.

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Date of Observation: 02/09/2021
Name: Alex T

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Gothic, CO
Aspect:
Elevation: 9500

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Date of Observation: 02/08/2021
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Cement Creek viewing into Southeast Mountans
Aspect: North, North East, East, South East, South
Elevation: most of it

Avalanches: A bunch :-) Did not observe any below treeline avalanches but I largely could see near and above treeline terrain across the Southeast Mountains. Most avalanche activity was on drifted northeast through east through southeast slopes. A few looked to be close to D3 in size, most were D2, but I often only saw the crown not the extent of debris. Overall there was less avalanche activity in the Southeast Mountains than the Northwest Mountains and the size was often a bit smaller none the less there were many dangerous avalanches observed from the past few days.
Weather: Mostly clear to partly cloudy skies with strong winds near treeline. Some snow transport was observed but many above treeline slopes look to be hammered by the wind with fetches running low on transportable snow.
Snowpack: Spent just a second looking at the snowpack but at 9,700′ near Deadman TH, I found HS of 85cm with 25cm sitting above mid-January weak layer. Further up Cement Creek near Reno Divide HS climbed to about 100cm with 35cm soft slab resting above January weak layer. Did not observe any below treeline avalanche but I would suspect with another round of snowfall, steep below treeline slopes will start to become dangerous in this area.

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Date of Observation: 02/07/2021
Name: Alex T

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Gothic
Aspect: South East
Elevation: NTL

Avalanches: The bench avalanche path ran during last nights wind, just barely spilling out into maxfield meadow

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Date of Observation: 02/07/2021
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Mt Emmons
Aspect: South East, South
Elevation: 9,200-11,700

Weather: Partly cloudy sky, warm temps, winds increasing in the afternoon. At times snow was transporting off the peaks and NTL/ATL ridgelines, though not consistently and fetches were running lower.

Snowpack: 2/7. No obvious signs to instability observed. The upper snowpack was becoming thick with warm temps and the sun. In the afternoon the wind started to buff the snow surface and create pockets of stiffer wind board around 11,000ft. We simply used the terrain to manage the avy problems, had some good turns and didn’t go looking for unstable conditions.

2/6. Similar tour as the following tour on 2/6. We spent a bit more time investigating the snowpack structure on a ESE aspect at 10,400ft. The slope angle at this sight was about 30 degrees. HS 140cm. The 12/10 interface was easy to feel with a ski pole and identify in the pit fall. This layer of concern consisted of F hard ~2mm NSF. Facets below the crust at the 1/19 interface were not immediately identified in the pit wall. Small column tests more clearly identified this 2nd layer of concern and produced sudden results. No obvious signs to instability were observed on this tour, until a couple occasions were someone didn’t have skis on and punched deeply into the snowpack. Several large collapses resulted.

Date of Observation: 02/07/2021
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Coney’s and Snodgrass
Aspect: North East
Elevation: N/BTL

Avalanches: Went up to Coney’s with good visibility mid-day to document more of the activity from the recent cycle. See photos. Spotted one large persistent slab on Scarp Ridge this evening that wasn’t there this morning that went to the ground.
Weather: Moderate to strong winds. Large plumes off of Whetstone and continued drifting, albeit less dramatic, off of the high peaks.
Snowpack: Traveled mostly on the beaten path but stepping away from skin tracks I got a couple of large collapses below treeline, both at Coney’s and at Snodgrass.

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Date of Observation: 02/07/2021
Name: Jack Caprio
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Aspect: North East
Elevation: 10,300′ below treeline

Avalanches: No new avalanches observed.

Weather: Few clouds. Temps in high teens and low 20’s. Moderate to strong westerly winds. Noticeable snow transport off neighboring peaks.

Snowpack: HS at the study plot was 95 cm. There was a 37 cm slab sitting on top of the 1/19 interface. The slab hardness increased from F to 4f just above the interface. 1/19 interface consists of 2-2.5 mm faceted crystals. Below the 1/19 layer is a mess of various faceted grains which generally grew in size the deeper they were in the snowpack. Snowpit tests resulted in moderate propagating results on the 1/19 layer, and a fracture, but no propagation on the 12/10 depth hoar layer. In a propagation saw test, the 1/19 interface propagated to the end of the column, while the 12/10 layer did not.

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Date of Observation: 02/07/2021
Name: Lee Pow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Elk basin area, no name ridge
Aspect: South East, South, South West
Elevation: 9000-11000

Avalanches: A few D2’s off of primarily southern aspect, solar influenced.   1 ran at ~10am, the others maybe 2 hours after.  2 shaped drainages in the lower reaches slid wall to wall, likely during our last load
Weather: Sunny and windy AF
Snowpack: Guess what? It’s all facets.
130cm hst, 3 melt freeze crusts 3cm or thinner, about 20cm apart, all facets from about 40cm down. With about 20cm of windbuff on top. Like sour cream on top of a rotten burrito.

Tried 2 ects, both failed before fully isolated ;)~

Its going to get better……right????

Date of Observation: 02/07/2021
Name: Frank Stern

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Lower Slate River
Aspect: North East
Elevation: 9000-10,500′

Avalanches: Most of the Climax chutes ran down to the river. Scarp’s Ridge and Schuykill.
Weather: Sunny, 32 F, 10 mph wind
Snowpack: Was stable on flat ground

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