Northwest Avalanche Center - Public Observation

Name:

Matt Primomo

Observation Date:

January 17, 2021

Submitted:

January 17, 2021

Zone or Region:

East Central

Activity:

Skiing/Snowboarding

Location:

Eightmile Creek

Did you observe any avalanches?

Yes

Comments:

Widespread avalanche cycle from the big event last week (Jan 12th), all aspects and elevations. Observed slides to D3 in size (though some may have been larger, viewing from a distance and couldn't see all the debris piles). The activity encompassed both slabs and loose, or a combination of the two.
Slabs ranged in nature from shallow storm slabs to deeper looking crowns.
Lots of wet loose avalanche activity, many slides ran full depth to the ground, revealing areas with a previously weak and shallow snowpack.
Many of the larger slides from higher elevation terrain may have started as dry slabs, but the gouging nature of some of the debris piles speaks to wet snow motion lower down.

I noticed lots of big tree trunks in many of the slide paths or debris, giving a significance to the avalanche cycle we just endured.

Photo:

None reported

Windy, warm, and broken leading to mostly sunny skies.
Noticed some small plumes of wind drifting snow indicated maybe there is some dry snow here or there above 8k.
A 2mm clear freezing rain crust from last night now overlies all the terrain we traveled in, over the top of the previous breakable melt freeze crust. Travel is very challenging outside of anything that isn't softened by the sun. The snowpack is not a mature, spring consolidated snowpack though at the surface it may appear to be. Moist, punchy snow can be found underneath the breakable surface crusts at least in the terrain we traveled in below 5k.