Avalanche: Mary Ellen

Overcast to Broken skies in the Mary Ellen Gulch this morning and cold temps kept snow light and dry. Some greenhousing noted late afternoon, but don't believe it affected above 9000'. Snow flurries intermittent above 9500' throughout day, but did not amount to anything. Winds were calm to light AM and PM, brief period of light to moderate from SW mid morning. No signs of human activity in the drainage, but some clues lying about to indicate some of the storm snow instabilities as result of weekend accumulations. I am not exactly sure when this avalanche in the first picture came down. But it is the first evidence of a natural avalanche I have personally seen of that size since the storm began. The bed surface had filled in a bit from the snows of yesterday and this morning. But it looked to be 40-50 ft wide and ran just shy of 200 vertical before it slowed down just above the bench. Additional signs of Dry Loose activity and one small cornice block fall were also noted int he upper bowl under Silver Creek Pk. Heard snowmobile traffic late in the day further down canyon, which shows there is now enough snow to enter from the lowers. Prior to this storm there was a wide spread surface hoar event in this region of AF. Will be suspect of that layer as the slab begins to stiffen this week. Targeted obs should be on this small grain weak layer over the terrain to determine its distribution and see how well it was preserved, noting the wind did not have a chance to knock it all down before the snow started Friday.