Snow Observations List

From email: "We popped over to the recent avalanche on the east side and got a crown profile. Avalanche is NE facing, 10090. HS-N-D2-R4-O

Crown is 105 cm deep, breaking on surface hoar. Details are in attached profile 

Something noteworthy.. the slope angle at the crown is 30.1 degrees." 

Did the tour de Yellow Mules and today and found some amazing pockets of riding. Tricky riding the wind blow snow though, the snow would be supportable to the slab/old snow, but found some pockets where you’d break through and submarine into the facets at the bottom. Ski tugs got us out. 
 

The wind had definitely been moving things around, signs of decent loading and some avy activity today, kind of where I thought we’d find some action. See attached photos. Noticed a small 8-10” wind slab pocket on the way in, looked like storm load but could have been sled triggered from the top. Found a bigger pocket that had pulled out on steeper terrain in the 1st Yellow Mule no tracks around since we were the first in there. Both were N to NE facing which we had flagged for ourselves due to the wind direction during a post storm. We were suspect of the east side of the compass from north to south. 
 

We chose to play in the flats today, kept slope angles low, and stayed out from under avy terrain - Still had a blast. Didn’t dig today (sorry), but storm totals listed seem pretty accurate. Honestly, I expected a bit more action today, but I got enough info from those two spots to be pretty conservative. 

Skied the second meadow this morning. S1 to S2 precipitation while we were in the area; cloud ceiling was around 8000' around 7am and lifted to ~9000' by 9:30am; calm winds. Ski tracks from yesterday had ~2-6" on them. Snow was deep and dry; no signs of avalanches or instability were observed.

Toured up the ramp at around 4 yesterday, snow was still falling heavily. Counted 4 or 5 natural storm slabs breaking mostly within the new snow. A skier before us triggered a slide in the chutes on a ski cut. I struggled to find a clean interface where the storm slabs were breaking on a few hand pits, mostly just a lot of fresh snow. 

There was a natural avalanche on the landslide face above quake lake. The avalanche failed on a weak layers near the ground and broke several hundred feet wide. 

From the phone message: A skier on the south side of Bradley's Meadow triggered an avalanche and was caught and carried by the slide. Thankfully, everyone was okay. 

Around 7 p.m. Monday night, a few miles up Portal Creek, triggered from bottom of slope.

Small wind slab in hyalite at the start to champaign slot, 7600’, WNW, ~8” crown

We were ski touring on the SW side of Mt. Henderson today, and noticed a large (natural?) avalanche on the NE aspect of Henderson.  First observed at around 1:15pm.  It appeared to be very fresh, possibly from a remote trigger this morning.  

2 photos attached.   A NE aspect, around 10,000'.

It looked to be 4-6' deep and about 500' wide.  And it failed on snow at/ near the ground.

Weather:  today alternated between heavy snowfall, and patches of sunshine.  Temps in the low/ mid 20's F, and calm winds.  A very nice day for ski touring.

No other avalanche activity observed in Miller Creek.

We experienced a couple of large collapses on westerly aspects/ in wind affected terrain around 10,000'.

We toured into Carrot Basin and Sage Creek this morning. The storm ended and skies were broken by 1000. The spx is about 1M deep and the surface conditions are soft and excellent in most areas with wind effect along the ridges. At about 130 we moved from carrot to sage creek and notcied three small and one large avalanche along cabin creek divide that were not present earlier in the day. Most looked remote and were isolated pockets (R1/D1). As we rounded the corner into sage there was one fresh larger slide (R2/D2) at about 9,400' on a NE facing slope. It appeared to be natural (remote?), failed at the ground and was about 200' wide and ran for 200' the crown was 2-3' deep.

From email: "Skied in Sheep Creek today. Still a little lean. Surprised to only see one D1R1 soft Slab on steep north facing slope. No other avalanche activity seen on Miller Mountain, Mineral, Sunset and Republic Mountain. No cr/co." 

It was still snowing heavily when we arrived at the Beehive Basin trailhead this morning. We noted about 12-18" of new snow and winds blowing from the NE. It only took 20 minutes of skinning before we triggered a small avalanche in a terrain trap from a flat bench above. This slide (R3 D1) broke 150' wide, about a foot deep, and filled the creek bed below.

As we continued up the basin, we pulled off just south of Tyler's and dug a snowpit in a protected meadow at 8446'. Our snowpit (HS 130) gave us clear, unstable test results: ECTP 10 and 18. Propagation occurred at the storm snow interface (10) and on the faceted persistent weak layer close to the ground (18). Our snowpit was a great piece of data, but, after triggering an avalanche moments before, we had all the feedback we needed to stick to a conservative travel plan. We chose to stay in the basin and give a wide berth to slopes steeper than 30°. 

Once this period of active loading ends, the storm snow instability will settle out relatively soon. But we are not forgetting about the persistent weak layers that are still lurking at the base of our snowpack. 

I recieved a call from BBSP patrol director at 9:50.

They had widespread, hair-trigger results during avalanche mitigation work.

A lot of slopes avalanched naturally before patrol made it up the mountain.

At 0900 they measured 1.8" of snow water equivalent (SWE) from the last 24 hours at the Alpine gun mount.

We rode teepee sat morning. Pretty good snow but relatively baseless. Broke an arm so fixed and went up blue creek on the west side of IP down Yale Kilgore road. 
we went in about 3pm so it was warm and super dense fog up high towards reas peak. 
rode several draws southwest of the peak prolly about 8000 but could be wrong. 
as we got to the open areas it was already super trenched out and setting up fast forming a nasty ice layer that was everywhere. Open areas, in tight trees etc. 

it was setting up but also warm so kind of turning to corn snow but the ice layer was so thick and rigid it was audible over the sound of the sleds. If you stuck a leg in it wouod grab your leg etc and it was everywhere we rode. 
 

rode until dark then rode out. Seemed to be getting worse the later it got. 
 

heard from others that they experienced similar conditions in big springs. 
 

hope this is helpful :) pin is approximate 

While touring up a low-angle ridge in the northern Lionhead, I experienced several large collapses, notably one that triggered a cornice fall from 50’ away. Another remote collapse caused about 500’ of an E facing bowl to propagate, but not slide. ~9200’ E-SE

Dug a small test pit. Unprofessional observation ectp 10 on the persistent weak layer seen across the advisory area. On our way out near the cabin I cut a line close to a creek to see if I could trigger something. 

About 2 feet of new snow since Friday, 10 inches of that were today. 

Couple collapses... Most aspects. No avalanches observed but visibility has been very low 

We dug snowpits on Saturday. SW facing, 9700 ft. Average HS 120. Several ECTNs 30 down. No propagation. Snow above the 12/21 sun crust is F hard

Also dug a pit today.... NW facing, 9200 ft. HS 125. ECTN12 35 down x2. There is also a thin crust 45 cm down in this pit. 4f snow above. 

Teaching a Level 1 up at Woody Creek Cabin the past couple of days. 2-2.5' has fallen since Friday, but 11" of that snow came throughout today. 

We toured up the East Side of Woody Ridge today. There was heavy snow throughout the day, steady winds (light-moderate) above the tree line all day, and low visibility. No cracking/collapsing, and no observed avalanches in the visible terrain. The skin track was completely refilled on the tour back to the cabin (within ~2 hours). 

We dug below Rip Curl: NE facing aspect @ 8620'.  Average HS 95-105cm. CT8 on the buried surface hoar about 2' down. ECT results: no propagation. The new snow that fell today was F-hard and unconsolidated. 

Likely the same up high, at the house on Horse Butte the storm snow has been increasing in density dramatically since morning.

Moderate SW'ly winds on the ridge were enough to entrain and transport some surface snow. However, windslab formation was very isolated, slabs were soft (4F), and not reactive to ski travel. Most surface snow in the area was unconsolidated, in some cases with a thin (<1cm) surface wind skin.

The top 150 feet of the SE path was scoured with variable ski quality, however below this the snow was largely unaffected by today's wind and skied well. No tracks were visible from previous days.

Around 2pm the base of the clouds descended, and snowfall began at a rate of S-1.