Observations

Date of Observation: 03/10/2021
Name: billy barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains

Weather: Obscured and with off and on snow starting towards midnight. Strong wind has made for drifting snow and blizzard conditions. There was 4″ new snow and water 0.39″ with 44″ on the ground. Wind has been generally moderate with strong gusts up to around 40 mph. Currently obscured with light snow but wind continues, though gusts down to 25 now. Yesterday high was 44F and the current is 16F which is the morning low. It is generally blizzard conditions.

Date of Observation: 03/07/2021
Name: Ian Havlick

 

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Red Coon Glades
Aspect: East, South East, South, South West
Elevation: 9000-11,200

 

Avalanches: Only fresh avalanche observed today was the D1.5 wet loose in Red Lady Bowl.
Weather: Solid inversion this morning with valley temps in teens and 12,000 not dipping below 25F. Very light westerly winds, rapidly warming temperatures between 8:30 and 10:30am. Overcast skies for most of the day aided the greenhouse effect and snow surface warming.
Snowpack: Snowpack started with a decent freeze below 10,500ft, but quickly softened on southerly facing BTL and NTL terrain by 10am, especially above the inversion (~10,500ft). Persistent slab structure in all south facing elevations today, but not until the more open “Red Coon Glades” that we found alarming, punchy, wet snow. After pole probing tipped us off to the poor, unconsolidated structure, I jumped to demonstrate to the level 1 students how punchy the snow had become and initiated a large “whumph” across the whole 24º steep meadow. We pulled the plug on the rest of our ascent after I dug a subsequent test pit and got an ECTP14 SC on moist large grained depth hoar 80-100cm deep (near ground, Dec 10th DH). On a small south facing test slope near the parking lot, initiated a 10’x10′ wet slab to fail and slide 4-6″ in a relatively shallow snowpack area, ~38º in steepness.

Factors that lead to turning around:
1. recent wet slab avalanche in nearby Coon Basin, similar aspect and elevation
2. Signs of instability, whumph
3. Propagating extended column test with moderate loading step on moist depth hoar near ground
4. Poor re-freeze above valley inversion
5. rapid temperature rise, and 3-4th day of above average temperatures.

 

Date of Observation: 03/07/2021
Name: Justin Blair

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Red Lady Bowl
Aspect: South East, South
Elevation: 12,000

Avalanches: As advertised, some wet slides this afternoon in Red Lady Bowl. Unsure of how triggered.

Photos:

Date of Observation: 03/06/2021
Name: geo bullock

 

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: North side of coon Basin
Aspect: South East
Elevation: 11,500

 

Avalanches: I triggered an avalanch 8-18″ deep and 70′ wide, ran 500′ vertical to the bottom of coon basin.I traversed under the cornice intending to take an easier route and quickly went from dense snow to shallow wet snow and rocks (see picture).went for a ride maby 200′.managed to stand up on my skis (see dirt spot) and let it pass. the intention was to ski down the ridge not coon basin. I was too late in the day to be on that pitch. the slope angle at the trigger point was at least 40
Weather: high overcast light breeze 40 degrees
Snowpack: 65cm wet snow

 

Photos:

Date of Observation: 03/06/2021
Name: Zach Kinler
Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Coon Basin
Aspect: South East
Elevation: NTL

 

Avalanches: Wet slab avalanche that ran sometime before 1:30 pm. A later report from the party involved revealed this was a skier-triggered avalanche. An observation will be submitted by the reporting party.

 

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Date of Observation: 03/05/2021
Name: Ben Pritchett and Bo Torey

 

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Upper Cement Creek and Upper Taylor River
Aspect:
Elevation: up to 9,000-12,400′

 

Avalanches: 3 small wet loose avalanches ran above treeline on steep rocky south-facing slopes in the Upper Taylor River headwaters. Surprisingly no other wet loose avalanches observed. Numerous roller balls seen, but none that gouged or spread into a pushy wet avalanche.
Weather: Ridgeline Wind Speed: Calm
Temperature: 43 F
Sky Cover: Clear
Depth of Total Snow: 150 cm
Weather Description: Warm, calm day. No blowing snow observed.
Snowpack: The upper snowpack is gaining strength and making it more difficult to influence weak snow below. Average snowpack in the upper Cement Creek and upper Taylor River headwaters area ranged from 130-160cm. Multiple ECT’s failed to produce propagating results in the normal loading steps. Removing part of the slab, and slamming on the remaining thin slab did produce a propagating result in one profile. East to south to west-facing slopes with a lot of sun have grown crusty, with rills developing in the snow surface near and below treeline. We experienced a pair of collapses, with long-running shooting cracks, over 50′ long, in the valley bottom. Alpine surfaces are highly variable, with a few inches of fresh snow obscuring highly textured and dense old wind textures. Near treeline shady surfaces were soft, but dense enough for reliable sled and boot support.

 

Photos:

Date of Observation: 03/01/2021 to 3/05/2021
Name: Zach Guy

 

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Elk Crest near Friends, Lindley, and Opa Huts.
Aspect: Various
Elevation: 10,000 – 13,200

 

Avalanches:

-2 small wind slabs ran naturally on Thursday near Taylor Pass
-2 large wet slabs ran naturally, likely on Wednesday, on a SE bowl of Leahy Peak (on the Aspen side of the divide). They failed near the ground, probably triggered by water draining into basal weak layers near rock outcrops. The debris looked fairly wet, I suspect the slabs were a mix of dry midpack, wet on the surface.
-1 recent persistent slab on Carbonate Hill, triggered by a cornice fall, likely during the warmup on Tuesday or Wednesday
-1 small loose wet ran near Star Peak on Tuesday.
-Dozens of previously undocumented large persistent slabs (up to D2.5) that ran mid-February or from subsequent wind events at all elevations and aspects.
Weather: Warm and sunny most of the week. Thursday brought 3″ of snow and gusty northwest winds. Back to warm and sunny on Friday.
Snowpack: Spent the last five days on a hut traverse in the upper Brush, Cement, Castle, and Tayler drainages. No signs of persistent slab instabilities underfoot, such as collapsing. Winds during the later half of February have heavily redistributed the snowpack above treeline; quite a bit of scouring, even on some leeward aspects, while some areas have a hard, thick snowpack with basal weak layers down 150 to 200 cm. In shallow areas at higher elevations and on most below treeline slopes, slabs have generally faceted away.
Snow surfaces are mix of sastrugi/windboard ATL, facets on shady BTL aspects, and melt-freeze crusts up to a few inches thick on the southern 2/3 of the compass. All of this was buried by about 3″ of snow on Thursday. We also noted small-grained surface hoar that formed last night at all elevations.

 

Photos:

Date of Observation: 03/05/2021

Author: Jack Caprio

Zone: Crested Butte Backcountry

Spring break is upon us. Temperatures are climbing and our snowpack has begun the annual springtime transition. See all the recent action here.

Date of Observation: 03/05/2021
Name: Andrew Breibart

 

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

 

Avalanches: photo 1. wet loose avalanches the NW zone observed on Schuylkill ridgelines. SE aspect ATL and BTL.
photo 2. natural D1 slab (persistent slab (?) avalanche below rock band entrance to Wolverine Bowl). NE aspect at NTL.-maybe captured in earlier obs.

no photo: on drive into town, I observed a D1 slab on E/SE aspect in Red Coon Bowl BTL.-maybe captured in earlier obs.
Weather: in the open, it was a sauna with high UV’s from the high albedo. calm. few clouds
heat relief relief in the trees.
Snowpack: 2 to 4 inches of recent snowfall.
on lee side of the ridge, boot pen was 14 inches and ski pen was 4 inches.
skiing was fun but there is a melt freeze crust on the open east aspects at BTL.

 

Photos:

Date of Observation: 03/03/2021
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains

Avalanches: (Info from an InReach Text)

2 fresh looking wet slabs SE ATL off Leahy Peak. (Aspen side). Hot rocky bowl. Probably today or yesterday. D2 to D2.5.

Robbins saw a recent PSa triggered by cornice fall on Carbonate.