Weather: Clear skies and a solid refreeze however only 24 hours after major rain event which led to serious sluffs/point release stepping down and triggering wet slabs throughout Queens basin
Snowpack: Two inches of melt freeze on top of some pretty wet snow – the rain event did a number on what was left.

AVALANCHES: Just sluff and small manageable winds slabs
WEATHER: Bluebird, warm at lower elevations Wind blowing N-NE
SNOWPACK: Holding firm, small wind slabs and sluff on steeper slopes-N/NE
Corn and bulletproof off Red Lady after 12, snow firm

WEATHER: Clear sky and warming temps. Westerly winds at ridgeline were light to moderate with some stronger gusts
SNOWPACK/AVALANCHE OBS: Recent colder weather and good freezes had sunny slopes locked up. Above treeline those sunny slopes seemed slow to soften with the steady winds. A northeast aspect above treeline had a couple inches new snow that sloughed down the to old but dry snow interface. Around 1:30pm, an east facing aspect was skiing like 4″ of warm/hot pow.

NAME: Evan
DATE: 4/3/15
LOCATION: Gothic Mountain
ELEVATION: 9,500-12,500
ASPECT: SE/SW

WEATHER: Sky had cleared by 9am. Mostly light to no wind at ridgeline with some stronger gusts. Strong solar but cool temps.

SNOWPACK/AVALANCHE OBS: Last nights .5″ of snow became moist on all slopes traveled. Southeast facing slopes where becoming 50/50 supportive to boot pen by 11pm on steep rocky slopes, but I bet if you took a T20 temperature it was still below 0C. I think they mostly lost their support do to the overall weak and large grained, snowpack in that area. South and Southwest slopes stayed supportive to boots throughout the day and softened to some nice creamy corn. I don’t know where you could have triggered an avalanche today in the terrain we traveled.

AVALANCHES: Small, manageable sluffing on steep terrain on the new snow interface. Skier triggered one isolated and shallow old slab that broke on the 3/24 facet layer, in a heavily cross loaded gulley near treeline, D1.

SNOWPACK: 4″ of new snow at summit, 1″ near valley bottom. Fell on solid and supportive crusts on almost all slopes except high elevation due north.

AVALANCHES:

WEATHER: Blustery recirculating winds BTL. Looked to be westerly and strong near treeline. Mostly Clouldy sky and maybe four snow flakes fell from the sky.

SNOWPACK: At all elevations the snowpack was 50/50 supportive to boots and most always supportive to skis. Last nights refreeze was about 5-6″. Snow surfaces didn’t heat up much today with the cooler temps and winds. Still, if your boot packing and want to stay on the surface, its best to crawl like a baby and distribute your weight.

UPLOADS:

AVALANCHES:

WEATHER: Clear, high temps at 12k 38 and 10K 50 degrees. Mostly light westerly winds through the day that where increasing to moderate around 2pm. clouds started to increase to “few” around 3pm.

SNOWPACK: Todays observations where based in the same terrain as yesterdays observations, and are highlighting the differences between the two days. Recent storm snow has seen more settlement and was much less reactive today in the form of wet loose avalanches, compared to yesterday. I didn’t notice any more natural lose wet avalanche activity in the Ruby Range on East to South facing terrain, though the possibility of skier triggering may have remained. On the terrain we skied at NTL/BTL elevations, skier triggering a loose wet avalanche had become much more stubborn then yesterday, though we continued to seek colder snow and changed aspects throughout the day as the snow heated up.

The old snow surface below last weeks storm snow remained frozen in the form of thick crusts 20-45cm thick in the terrain observed. So we where only worried about loose wet avalanches and still need more time at these warm temperatures to see melt water penetrating deeper into the snowpack and to start worrying about wet slabs.

UPLOADS:

WEATHER: Light to Moderate westerly winds at ridge line. Clear sky. High temps of 37 at 12k and 47 at 10k.

SNOWPACK: The recent storm snow became moist or wet down to the 3/23 Interface on all terrain. A few quick pits throughout the day found frozen snow below the 3/23 Interface with moist grains below this very thick crust ~25cms. Skier triggered loose wet avalanches where very likely at 12:00pm on East and 2:00 pm on West.

Above treeline in the Ruby range loose wet avalanche where having a party. These avalanches where running on south east an south aspects in the areas we could see and where all in the D1 to D1.5 range. While relatively small, they would have wrecked your world if you got hit and tumbled by one. Something else of note, all this loose wet activity was starting from rock outcrops and slopes without big rock outcrops haven’t shed yet.

UPLOADS:

IMG_0507

IMG_0506

AVALANCHES:

WEATHER: Mostly sunny, calm, warm

SNOWPACK: Two snow courses: Bottom of Red Lady Glades (Keystone) and the other by Mike’s Mile (Crested Butte).

Hard rain crust found at both courses 4 inches below the surface. Felt like an ice lens trying to take snow cores.
Depth of snow ranged between 24 and 35 inches on average. A few spots protected by tree cover were between 7 and 12 inches.
Red Lady Glade Course appears to be much warmer as soil plugs were wet and loose.

UPLOADS: