Observation Date: 12/23/2020

Route/Location:
We skied out to Gash proper and dug around and then made our way back to the nob for some powder laps.

Weather:
Sunny with some clouds hanging onto the ridge.

Wind:
Whipping strong all day, from SW, W, NW 10-20, gusts to 30 or so.

New Snow: 6-12″

Avalanche Activity:
Red flags encountered;
audible collapsing near ridge @ 8600′,
we observed two natural avalanches. both E/NE facing; one was much larger- two bowls north of the nob (500 ft wide, 1-3 ft crown, debris ran for close to 1000′), and another in steep north-facing terrain just north of the nob (50 ft wide, 1 ft crown, debris ran for 100 ft). I suspect that both of these ran on the 11/21 interface when temps dropped drastically from our solstice soaker.

Other Comments:
We were getting failures in our snowpits in the upper 40 cm from the new snow, everything from ECTP’s in the low 20s at higher elevations and we had some columns fail on isolation down near the nob. No failures were noted deeper in the pack.

Observer: Ned Gall