Sunny and calm. The crust was barely starting to soften on solar aspects in the afternoon. It was getting warm enough to trigger loose wet avalanches in steep and rocky terrain.
Observation: Girdwood
Location: Crow Creek
We toured up Magpie to about 4700′. We were bummed to find a breakable crust all the way up to the top! Must have been warm enough to heat the surface the past few days. We saw a lot of loose wet activity on solar aspects this afternoon, some of it pulling out smaller slabs up to maybe a foot deep and 20′ wide or so. On our way out I saw debris in Surprise Bowl on Goat Mountain that wasn’t there in the morning, maybe D2 in size. I couldn’t see the start zone from where we were, but it would have been big for a loose avalanche. Guessing (high uncertainty) it was a wet sluff that pulled out a slab, similar to what we were seeing happening in Magpie.
We also saw older natural activity in the valley. The most notable avalanches were a wide-propagating avalanche on Goat Mtn, and one avalanche that failed on the ground above the Milk Glacier, down the ridgeline from South Raven. We saw these from a distance, so really hard to say how recent they were.
Weather
Snow surface
Paper thin breakable crust up to our high pint at 4700'.
Natural avalanche on the front side of Goat Mtn. 01.28.2023
The deep slab that released on the ground was in the shaded bowl in the middle of the frame. 01.28.2023
Cropped version of the photo above to show the slab that released on the ground.