Quick report
The avalanches and large rollerball I observed appeared to be a few days old at this point and related to the extreme warm up and heavy rain event of the 26th and 27th. The slide on pucker up almost certainly released on the buried facets from early January. Snowpack has gone through multiple freeze thaws since those observed avalanches released. All though it’s been warm the past few days, the snowpack on north aspects was frozen solid. above 8k on north snow was almost impenetrable. I dug a pit at 8600 ft on a south aspect on the 29th. I dug to monitor the reactive facets I had found a week prior. Pit depth was 90cm. I found the crust and buried facets about 80cm down. The facets had rounded significantly and were wet. You could make a snow ball with them while last week they were loose and would fall right through your fingers. Results from the pit were ECTX . I observed no instabilities in the surface snow.
Avalanche
Massive natural D4 wall to wall crown on Pucker Up. 9000 ft east aspect. This is one of the largest avalanches I’ve ever seen in the Central OR. The crown height appears 5 -15 feet deep and up to a 1000 ft wide. I observed what appeared to be two different set of avalanches. The first and the largest being highlighted by the blue and probably responsible for the large crown. The blue highlights old debris that have been covered over by new snow and rain. I’m guessing that released during the heavy loading of snow and rain on the 26th and 27th. The red highlights debris that has large chunks that could be from a cornice release and more likely occurred after the 27th because it is fresh and hasn’t been covered over by snow or rain runnels. I also saw a massive Roller Ball the size of a Hot Tub. I’m guessing this occurred sometime during that same large rain event of the 26th and 27th.