05-06 Observations from CO Central & Northern Rockies

[Poop~Ghost]

was up at berthoud pass yesterday and noticed that the 2-3 inches ontop of the crust was sloughing off in the steep chutes. it's a heavy ice crust layer under, but not enough snow to be a problem yet (as of yesterday), but with more snow, it's gonna cut loose quick.

ended up just skiing the trees on the west aspect...

[Poop~Ghost]

Was again at Berthoud this morning and noticed two fresh avies across the south-east facing rock bands. Both looked ski triggered and probably happened yesterday. If you were looking from the parking lot, the left crown looked to be about 100 feet across, starting near the top of the bands. Crown was only 6-12" deep from what I could tell from my vantage point. Lots of debris.

The 2nd avy was on the right most point on the rock band, visible from the lot. Again, probably 100 feet across - looked like tracks started it. Fairly thin crown.

Wish I had my camera w/ me... oh well. Snow sucked, but at least I was out.

[Vicious]

Was again at Berthoud this morning and noticed two fresh avies across the south-east facing rock bands. Both looked ski triggered and probably happened yesterday. If you were looking from the parking lot, the left crown looked to be about 100 feet across, starting near the top of the bands. Crown was only 6-12" deep from what I could tell from my vantage point. Lots of debris.

The 2nd avy was on the right most point on the rock band, visible from the lot. Again, probably 100 feet across - looked like tracks started it. Fairly thin crown.

Wish I had my camera w/ me... oh well. Snow sucked, but at least I was out.

We were up there today too. Didn't see tracks on the looker's right crown, but didn't look too hard either. Not too sure who'd be silly enough to traverse in under those rocks.

I'm never good with the names of the areas around BP, but there was a large slide up in one of the eastern facing bowls. We hiked over into Floral and had a good vantage point from there...looked as those portions of the cornice had fallen.

Creepy to see that Hollywood had slid as my tracks from two days ago are now covered in avy debris.

[iskibc]

Lot's of faceting above and below that dust layer. The next storm cycle will be interesting to say the least. It is my guess this layer will not be broken down and will last through the spring season.

[riderspro]

Got my first look at the dust layer yesterday. I don't remember seeing anything like it. It was at least 3 cm thick in several places at Breck. It was primarilly on the South facing aspects where I was. Hopefully we can get a nice fresh snow layer on top of it to at least bury it for a little while before it totally destroys the base.

[Hacksaw]

Here is a link to some photos I took of the dust layer over on the CAIC website.

http://geosurvey.state.co.us/avalanc...aspx?tabid=427

Cheers,
Halsted

[Lurch]

Skiing in the Montezuma area today one of our group kicked off a small slide. It was 2 feet deep, 200 feet wide and ran 300 - 400 feet, on a north aspect at elevation ~11,400. The slab ran on top of the dust layer.

I was the first one down and nothing moved for me the 2nd in our group of four went and traversed through a pillow which started the slide. He had enough momentum that he was able to ski out of it to safety.

I've skied this slope several times with out any activity since the dust storm but always avoided the pillow. It just took one skier hitting the right spot to make it run.

[FiveLarge]

Skiing in the Montezuma area today one of our group kicked off a small slide. It was 2 feet deep, 200 feet wide and ran 300 - 400 feet, on a north aspect at elevation ~11,400. The slab ran on top of the dust layer.

I was the first one down and nothing moved for me the 2nd in our group of four went and traversed through a pillow which started the slide. He had enough momentum that he was able to ski out of it to safety.

I've skied this slope several times with out any activity since the dust storm but always avoided the pillow. It just took one skier hitting the right spot to make it run.

Any idea on slope angle?

Was skiing near the Equity Mine around zuma last Thursday. One quite small "point" release that did not propogate much at all, likely had been skier triggered, that started at the edge of a rock outcrop, looked to have run on the dust layer, a day or more earlier. Our snowpit analysis provided pretty easy & clean shears on both tap & shovel shear tests, but not alot of energy. Failure was at the top of the dust layer on the tap test, and started there, but went through to the bottom of the dust layer on the shear test. (The actual dust layer is thin, but faceting fairly signifcant above the dust). Rutchblock test wasn't perfectly executed, but a failure was much more difficult in that test. It wasn't the most representative slope of what we were aiming to ski, but it was the best we could get. A ski cut at the top of the slope we did ski didn't provide any results, and we both skied the line without any further sign of instability.

[Lurch]

Any idea on slope angle?

Was skiing near the Equity Mine around zuma last Thursday. One quite small "point" release that did not propogate much at all, likely had been skier triggered, that started at the edge of a rock outcrop, looked to have run on the dust layer, a day or more earlier. Our snowpit analysis provided pretty easy & clean shears on both tap & shovel shear tests, but not alot of energy. Failure was at the top of the dust layer on the tap test, and started there, but went through to the bottom of the dust layer on the shear test. (The actual dust layer is thin, but faceting fairly signifcant above the dust). Rutchblock test wasn't perfectly executed, but a failure was much more difficult in that test. It wasn't the most representative slope of what we were aiming to ski, but it was the best we could get. A ski cut at the top of the slope we did ski didn't provide any results, and we both skied the line without any further sign of instability.

The slope angle at the fracture line was ~38 degrees. Lower down the slope kicks up in to the low 40s but the slide didn't continue down even though it was running onto the steeper section of the slope.

[Knockneed Man]

Here's a classic Colorado sight... From what I gather 13 people went into Maroon Bowl on 3/24/06 and the thirteenth person hit the sweet spot. Thingy about it is, it was the second skier triggered avie in Maroon that week, and the third on the West side of Highlands Ridge that week.

[FiveLarge]

Here's a classic Colorado sight... From what I gather 13 people went into Maroon Bowl on 3/24/06 and the thirteenth person hit the sweet spot. Thingy about it is, it was the second skier triggered avie in Maroon that week, and the third on the West side of Highlands Ridge that week.

Ah, yes, spatial variability. There was another report of a slide with multiple tracks nearby off Loveland Pass just the other day. Does look like the slide may have started just to lookers left of those rocks popping through, likely weak spots/trigger points in the pack.

[jSki]

There were multiple slides on east loveland pass today and 1 on the professor. We witnessed a skier trigger a small slide about half way down the prefessor from the ridge, he skied off to the side fine. The slide looked about 60ft wide and travelled about 300 feet. Also some slides at loveland ski area up on the east facing top ridge. These all ocurred in the afternoon once the sun heated the snow up. I was planning on going up to berthoud tomorow, anyone have a condition report.

[Shredhead]

Here's a classic Colorado sight... From what I gather 13 people went into Maroon Bowl on 3/24/06 and the thirteenth person hit the sweet spot. Thingy about it is, it was the second skier triggered avie in Maroon that week, and the third on the West side of Highlands Ridge that week.

KM:

How late in the day did that slide? It was starting to get pretty warm Friday and Saturday. We hit multiple runs down eastern aspects Sunday and Monday without any signs of instablity problems.

[Knockneed Man]

That was from a week ago. Not sure what time of day, as it happened on Friday and I took the pic on Saturday on our way out the Ridge to ski Marta's Chute.