Not Enough New Snow to Cause Problems, Yet

We rode out of the Buttermilk Trailhead to the old Ski Hill at Lionhead with Gallatin County SAR, Fremont County SAR, and local snowmobile guide from West Yellowstone for our annual West Yellowstone Avalanche Fundamentals class.

It snowed lightly all day without much accumulation (maybe an inch). Winds were stronger than I anticipated, but weren't moving much snow at 8000.' I suspect there was a bit more transport at higher elevations along the ridgeline, but there just isn't much soft snow available for transport. Isolated instability is tied to wind loading. At the Ski Hill breakover, we dug 40 people worth of snow pits. In a couple of them, there was just enough wind loading to get propagating results (ECT16-ECTP24) on basal weak layers. 

Recently, buried surface hoar and near surface facets didn't have enough new snow on it to cause problems, but it was preserved under 1-2" of snow.