Snow Observations List

We skied Texas meadow this evening, and found relative stability. We tested a small hand out which did show the poor snow structures that the rest of the area with a very cohesive top on a sugary base, but we didn't find wumphing or other signs of instability in this zone. Southern aspects did have a strong sun crust on them, while others had great snow. There was also very gusty wind from the south which made temporary whiteouts and could be transporting snow. 

We rode up to the Indepedence Mine area (outside our advisory area) to check out the snowpack conditions before the Poker Ride this Saturday. As we arrived in the basin we saw a good sized recent natural avalanche. This really tells you all you need to know - recent avalanches are the clearest sign that triggering more avalanches is possible.

We then dug and confirmed that the snowpack is just as weak as it is across our advisory area. Two feet of fist hardness facets at the ground with almost four feet of slab above them make for a very weak structure.

If you're headed up for the ride this weekend I'd advise avoiding riding on and staying out from under slopes steeper than 30 degrees. 

We toured to the east shoulder of Divide Peak today, 02/22/2024. We saw several natural avalanches on the north-facing terrain in Divide Cirque, below Hyalite Peak, and Overlook Mountain. These avalanches likely happened following a storm near the end of last week. Near the base of Divide, we dug on a SE-facing slope at 9300' and had a stability score of ECTP30. From here, we continued up the shoulder, trying our best to stay on slopes near 30 degrees in steepness. At the top of the shoulder on an east slope at 9600', we dug another pit and found 133 cm of snow and had a stability score of ECTP20. In both our snowpits, we had a well-defined layer of weak faceted snow buried 2-3 feet deep. This is the layer our stability tests failed on. 

During our tour, we saw no cracking or collapsing, but recent natural avalanches near us and the large natural avalanche seen on Mt. Bole a few days ago encouraged us to keep our terrain choices conservative. We skied down near our skin track one at a time and avoided areas with terrain traps like gullies, cliffs, and thick trees below. 

My brother and I toured into the skillet at Bacon Rind. We dug a pit at the top of the skillet, east aspect, 9000 feet. Total snow depth was 115cm. We observed CT14 and ECTP25, 2.5 feet or 75 cm down, propagating on large old facets below a hard slab. That slab was dense and carrying some energy when collapsed in our column tests. We also observed multiple suspected week old natural avalanches on northeast aspects.

From instagram (2/23/24): Wide collapses and cracks reported near Palisades Falls above the east fork Hyalite road. 

We went back to the Throne today and toured up to the ridge where 9 days ago Dave and I experienced a large collapse prompting us to decend our skin track. During our ascent, we had no signs of instability such as cracking or collapsing but were still cautious while walking through steep terrain. On the north side of the Throne, we found a shallow snowpack, 63 cm, and saw a stability score of ECTX. On the south side, we found a slightly deeper snowpack and again saw a score of ECTX in the snowpit. 

We felt good about going into this terrain for a couple of reasons. First, this area has had only a few reports of recent activity activity. Second, there was a clean runout below and the slope was barely over 30 degrees in steepness. All of this in addition to seeing no signs of instability and our stable test scores made us feel comfortable skiing from the top while taking a conservative approach and skiing one at a time. 

Photo of an avalanche observed yesterday (2/22) on the SW face of Sawtooth Mountain at about 10,600’. Looks to be a few days old, but hard to tell since all skier traffic from the weekend has been erased with Tuesday’s wind/precip. If you look closely, you can see the crown extends across the entire face.

Long tour up the Noble Fork yesterday. The two feet of recent snow have much improved travel conditions. I noticed no bullseye signs of surface instabilities, asides from some old crowns on a very steep, north facing slope at treeline (~9000'). There was also some localized collapsing in windboard at higher elevations, and lots of rollerballs releasing from cliffs with solar aspects. I did not have time for a pit, so focused on avoiding connected avalanche terrain, and the runouts of larger solar paths.

These avalanche were noticed yesterday morning (2/20), possibly happened on 2/18-2/19.

NW aspect, 13 degree slope, 7850 ft elev. 

Total snow depth of 120cm

ECT X

Shovel Sheer (Hard) at 74cm

 

My ski partner triggered a big collapse/woomph from the our skin track, heading up from WY Creek back toward Republic Creek on an W facing slope. It was the second time we worked over this skin track, and it propagated to where I was at least, about 30 yards above them. I felt/heard the collapse 1/2 to 1 second after they triggered it.

It was snowing most of the afternoon in WY Creek with moderate winds with strong gusts at the ridgline coming out of the Southwest. 

On the drive up Bridger canyon this morning we noticed an avalanche on an east-northeast facing slope at the ridge near Bridger peak that was not previously noted or reported. Likely natural, possibly happened overnight or yesterday, but maybe earlier and went unnoticed? It looked 1-2’ deep with rocks showing through parts of the bed surface. 200-250’ wide. Debris did not appear to make it all the way down the chute to flatter runout. But, light was not great and all dimensions were difficult to confirm.

We skinned up the shoulder just south of the Bacon Rind skillet, through the upper meadows to the top of the Skillet and descended a similar route. 

On our ascent we got no cracking or collapsing, but we did get some big collapses while we were descending through the trees in the bottom 1/3 of the ski run. We dug on SE and NE aspects in the upper meadows at around 8600 ft. ECTPs in the 20s on the surface hoar at the top of the December facets. 

The skillet slid sometime recently. Based on the snow on top I'm guessing Thursday-Friday last week (Feb 15-16th), but it could have happened up to a week earlier. Broke ~2 ft deep, 150 ft wide, and it was hard to tell how far it ran, but I'm estimating 200 vertical feet.

We stuck to our conservative plan and enjoyed great low angle powder skiing and then bushwacking back to the car. 

Saw this today.  Relatively recent and a deeper failure than some of the other naturals on Saddle and the Football Field.  

We choose to stay off slopes steeper than 30 degrees before leaving the town and heading south of Cooke City to West Woody Ridge. This decision was based on the recent and seasonal avalanche history in the area. There have been several large and dangerous human-triggered and natural avalanches and many other smaller slides failing on persistent weak layers. We stuck to our choice when we dug a snowpit and got stable test results (ECTX). Near the ridge and the starting zones of nearby avalanche paths, we triggered a large collapse that sent shooting cracks out a couple hundred feet. If the slope had been any steeper, we would have triggered an avalanche. Our conviction to stick to our plan kept us safe. We recommend that you make travel plans based on the big-picture indicators of INSTABILITY and ignore snowpits that indicate STABILITY. 

In town, we heard vague reports of what sounded like another large, rider-triggered avalanche occurring on the north side of Scotch Bonnet near a human-triggered avalanche that broke on Friday. We also heard a report of localized collapsing in the Goose Lake area. And the group described hearing a boom and a roaring sound that they believed was an avalanche but did not have the visibility to confirm. 

Nothing new, but we were in Tepee Creek today.  Three of us dropped into a flat meadow on a (wide) ledge, and after sitting there for a minute or less, we all felt a "whump" and collapse. While the meadow had some small rolling terrain, it was flat overall.

Last Sunday we saw people touring up Scotch Bonnet and when we returned Monday we saw a large slide covering most of their tracks. 

Accessed low angle settled powder runs via mellow ridge terrain adjacent to a known avalanche path which is steep, rocky and windloaded. We descended on lower angle terrain following uptrack. On second lap observed the crown and debris while climbing uptrack and suspected we remote triggered; it was not there on first lap. Slope angle 35-38 degrees estimated. Estimate crown depth 60-120 cms. Estimated debris depth 2-3 meters due to terrain trap of an abrupt transition to flat terrain at bottom of path. We did not approach the crown or debris due to hangfire. Starting Zone NE facing at 9100' on wind loaded convexity with unsupported terrain below and rocky bed surface and exposed rocks/cliffs. I would classify it as HS-ASur-R4-D2.5-O

Large collapses with cracks connecting weak spots in the snowpack for 50 feet around us while breaking trail. Slab has gotten quite a bit thicker and more cohesive with 3 inches SWE in past 14 days combined with relatively warm temps promoting settling, strong solar input on the southerlies, and some wind. Average snow depth 100 cms consisting of a F-1Fslab on top of 20-30 cms of large facets. A crust in between on solar aspects. There is a density break/layer of NSF in the slab you can see in some of the photos where it appeared to shear between those layers. A very scary snowpack even for the Pioneers which regularly harbor PWLs throughout the season.

While transitioning at the top of mineral mountain burn, a member of our party stepped away from our packed out transition spot and likely the deeper impact from his ski boots triggered the weak layer beneath us and created a massive whumf that propagated hundreds of feet and was strong enough to knock snow off of nearby trees. Nothing we observed slid but the collapse was extremely evident. 

From the approach trail to Mummy II we saw two large crowns on the ridge associated with Mt. Bole. Not sure when they happened, but they looked pretty big! Observed Monday morning, February 19