Observations

Date of Observation: 01/07/2021
Name: Ross Matlock

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: 2nd bowl
Aspect: North East
Elevation: Coneys

Avalanches: No avalanches seen or any sign of instability
Weather: Clear baby, some would say warm!!
Snowpack: In a word weak! I feel we are teetering on full facet top to bottom. What was perhaps a supportably snow pack, is slowly turning to a weak unconsolidated, trap door facet monster. Its nothing unusual for us, but with the surface hoar developing and continued cold temps, we are setting ourselves up for potential problems with more snow load.

Date of Observation: 01/06/2021
Name: Ian Havlick

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Gothic Shoulder South
Aspect: South, South West, West
Elevation: 9,000-11,400

Avalanches: Only fresh avalanche observed was ~D1.5 on Baldy, off a windloaded southerly facing slope ATL. Likely will be reported by others closer to Baldy today.

Weather: Relatively cold morning, strong solar, moderate westerly winds ATL.

Snowpack: Several large collapses on flat terrain on Washington Gulch valley bottoms. More signs on instability on southerly, low angle terrain but NO signs of instability on southerly slopes with more slope angle. Travelled slopes up to 31º today. Steeper solar aspects were moist by 1300 and rollerballs and small wet loose out of warm, southerly facing terrain on Gothic. Dug one pit on low angle WNW facing slope BTL. Obvious weak layer but fairly faceted overlaying slab not producing propagation.. ECTX and CT30+1 SC.

Date of Observation: 01/04/2021
Name: Jack Caprio
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Aspect: North East
Elevation: 10,000

Snowpack:

As of 1/4/21, the HS at the study plot (NE, 10,000) is 71 cm. 13 cm of F to 4F snow sits at the top of the snowpack. This layer represents the newer storm snow that fell over the past 10 days which buried the 12/26 interface @ 58 cm.

Below the 12/26 interface lies 10 more cm of 4F- snow leading to a buried NSF layer at 48 cm (12/22 interface). This interface initiated failure during an ECT test but did not propagate.

13 cm below the 12/22 interface is our old friend the 12/10 interface. This layer, which is 35 cm thick, has evolved into depth hoar near the ground. ECT tests resulted in propagating results (ECTP22 @ 12/10 interface). This same interface, when tested almost 2 weeks prior on 12/23/20 (snowpit attached in images), produced propagating results much more easily (ECTP7). According to the results over time, the 12/10 interface would appear to be becoming more stubborn. But with the 12/22, and 12/26 interfaces sitting above of the 12/10 interface, we are continuing to see plenty of avalanche activity on steep, sheltered NE facing terrain.

Date of Observation: 01/05/2021
Name: Eric Murrow Evan Ross

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Snodgrass north side
Aspect: North, North East, East
Elevation: 9,400′ – 11,100′

Avalanches: Intentionally triggered a couple small loose avalanches on very steep features below ridgetop, just below 11,000′.

Weather: Mostly cloudy skies with snowfall rates between s-1 and s2. Several short periods of moderate snow. Accumulations as of 3pm around 4 inches.

Snowpack: Traveled above numerous northerly terrain features, many of which avalanched in December, without collapsing or signs of instability. Descended northerly slopes up to about 35 with no signs of instability. Traveled through some lower angled slopes that looked to have seen little traffic yet this winter without collapsing. One hasty pit showed a snowpack largely composed of fist hard snow around 90cm deep…just enough support for reasonable riding conditions. Other lower angled northerly features felt a bit stiffer while probing as compared to pit location. It is becoming hard to visually tell which slopes have avalanched in December and those that didn’t. We choose to avoid the steepest terrain and avoid features that had consequential runouts to hedge our bets.

No need for a shovel here, just wipe the snow away with your hand and make a wall. Simple snowpack structure. Soft faceting slab over weak facets. ENE Aspect, 10,600ft, HS ~90cm, Slope ~34

Date of Observation: 01/04/2021
Name: Eric Murrow

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Below Climax Chutes
Aspect: North, North East, East
Elevation: 8,900′ – 9,300′

Avalanches: Nothing new to report
Weather: Mostly clear skies, reasonable air temps, but guessing a fair bit cooler than areas above the inversion.
Snowpack: Very short tour walking about near valley bottom below Climax Chutes at the low end of Slate River Valley. Checked on snowpack where I would expect slabs to facet the quickest on shaded slopes. Ski pen was generally 6 to 8 inches with snowpack depth around 70cm (a bit more than 2 feet). Walked through areas with no previous traffic and only produced one notable collapse but stomped/jumped in many places looking for one. Many slopes in this area had previously cracked/collapsed this past week, likely during the loading event around the 28th or 29th. Slab is soft but still present even in the inversion zone, no propagating test results – see photo (profile location did not show evidence of the previous collapse but ya never know).

Photos:

Date of Observation: 01/03/2021
Name: Joey Carpenter

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Ridge btwx West Brush Creek and Deer Creek trail
Aspect: East, South East, South
Elevation: 9.5k-11.1k

Avalanches: R2D2 unintentional remote trigger. About 150 feet away from low angle ridgeline. E aspect. 150 ft wide running 1200 vert. Avg crown 65cm with deepest portions reaching 95cms. Slope angle averaged 37 degrees but propagated onto angles as low as 34 in start zone. Shattering cracks on 31-32 degree slopes adjacent to slide path. Ran on 1-2mm facet capped crust. 1F hardness throughout majority of slab w/ 4f nearing the top from recent transport. This avalanche was small relative to the path but I am certain was unsurvivable. It ran through countless trees, rocks and other terrain traps. It snapped trees 3-4.5inches in diameter. The debris pile was 255cm deep at the bottom of the path and set up very firm. The unaffected snow adjacent to the debris pile was 70cm of fist hard facets to the ground which I’m certain the debris wiped out in the path, essentially making the debris pile over 8 feet deep.
Weather: Weather was sunny and warm around 10am at WBC/Deer creek junction with calm winds. Thin clouds filtered in from the southwest throughout the morning and by 1300 had made it 7/8 coverage with S towards gunnison still holding onto blue skies. Weather got progressively more unsettled making recording crown stats difficult due to snow, cold temps and 10-15mph ridge-top winds. S1- snowfall began around 2pm accompanied by continued 10-15mph sustained winds from the SW. A brief period of S2 came through but settled back out to S1-.
Snowpack: Spx on BTL S&SE tilting slopes was thin and weak. Below ~10.5k there was little slab structure if any. Collapses propagated short distances with minor cracking. As I gained elevation, cracking began to propagate further with more substantial cracking shooting ~70 feet and notable slab structure from pole probes. In attached photos of crown “profile” you can see the P- facet capped crust that acted as the bed surface. There was another P- crust below this with ~5cm of facets above and below. The spx from the 30cm to the ground started at 1f and slowly degraded to about F hard basal facets. The slab was 1F+ to 4f-, bottom up. The unpredictable nature of the avalanche problems this year are terrifying. Please be careful out there friends.

Photos:

Date of Observation: 01/03/2021
Name: Ben Ammon

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Far Side Coney’s
Aspect: North, North East, East, South East, South, South West, West
Elevation: Up to 11,000′

Avalanches: No new ones observed.
Weather: Mod winds NW
Morning sun had warmed S and SE surfaces
Snow flurries through the afternoon, no accumulation noted
Snowpack: Several collapses on untracked W-facing slopes BTL, none observed on the untracked E and NE BTL slopes we traveled on.
NE aspect at 10,800′ had HS of 85cm, but much greater if you looked for wind-loaded pockets right below the ridgeline along Coney’s.
ECTN24 down 50cm on 12/10 interface
PST 45/100 END down 50cm on 12/10 interface

Date of Observation: 01/03/2021
Name: Andrew Breibart

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Washington Gulch-Snodgrass T.H.
Aspect: West, North West
Elevation: BTL

Avalanches: NA. Didn’t hunt for slides on Gothic or Anthracite Mesa.
Weather: For the majority of the day, mostly cloudy and calm in our area.
Snowpack: cracking within 10 to 15 of new and old skin tracks on slopes <20 degrees. Cracks were less than 15 feet in length and not dendritic. Snow is not supportive as boot pen is about 14 inches. One whump was heard by group when moving from the road to the hillslope between the road and spruce fir forest.

Date of Observation: 01/02/2021
Name: Ben Ammon

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Snodgrass
Aspect: North, North East, East
Elevation: BTL

Weather: Winds calm to light BTL
Skies clear to scattered
Snowpack: Still observed multiple collapses but some much more stubborn than in past days. One collapse occurred while the group was taking a break, and people were standing and moving around, and then someone found the right spot and the whole meadow dropped.
We dug at 10,900 feet on a NE aspect that was very sheltered and near the dark timber.
HS 80cm 35cm F hard FC, 20cm 1F- mixed forms (12/10 storm), 25cm F-4F DF/FC (12/28 storm)
CT19 down 25cm (12/10 interface) and CT25 SC down 45cm (Nov FC)
ECTN29 down 45cm
ECTN24 down 45cm

Date of Observation: 01/02/2021
Name: Pamela Taylor

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Walrod Gulch trail
Aspect: South East
Elevation: 10,185

Avalanches: See photo.  It looked like it was triggered by an animal, as a line of tracks led to the break.  Skin tracks headed north on the trail were buried by debris but were present on the other side.

Photos: