Croy, Quigley, Colorado on roads and Wood River in Della View on foot
Quick report
There was a fair amount of recent (night of 2/2 or morning of 2/3) natural avalanche activity in Croy Canyon on NW-N-NE-E aspects. The Della Mtn slide that hit the river was by far the largest observed avalanche.
Cracking and collapsing are mostly N/A - very limited travel on foot.Weather
- Air Temp
- 30s
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- light
- Recent Snowfall
- 55
- Snow Avail For Transport
- large amounts
55cm settled storm snow by the river. W winds moving some snow over ridgelines on Kelly Mtn. Large amounts of snow available for transport at middle and upper elevations in the WRV, not as much at low elevations due to heat/density of upper part of the snowpack. Significant previous wind transport in Croy Canyon.
Snowpack
55cm of dense, settled storm snow by the Della View/Heagle Park tennis courts. There is a 2mm rain crust from the afternoon of 2/1, buried about 2/3 of the way down in the storm snow. The surface and upper 10cm was moist/damp.
Avalanche
- Size
- D2.5 R3
- Type
- U
- Count
- 3
- Aspect
- NE
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 6650 ft
The main flow of this avalanche crossed and temporarily blocked the river but did not hit any houses. It did not cause flooding. A smaller finger hit the river and did not block it entirely. Unknown exact timing, but the amount of new snow on the debris and the amount of slush floating in the river put the best guess at 6-9AM on Monday 2/3. I visited the site around 10:30AM. We entered this as 3 separate avalanches on Della, but it could have been one collapse that produced all the slides, wrapping around the ridgeline. Slab thickness was estimated from photos. Distance was measured with digital mapping. Will add more photos later.