Snow Observations List

From email: "A little bbowl storm skiing for me yesterday afternoon/evening. Measured 20-25cm settled storm snow at base area and 35-40cm at mid and upper mountain. Very graupel-rich storm, with lots of rimed stellars too. Winds were blowing from the N across the lower mountain and up to the top of bridger, then I got into the calm "detachment zone" with light winds for the rest of the way. Lots of relatively soft wind slab formation going on, maximum encountered slab depth was 30-40cm. Localized cracking in these drifts, and some subtle, muffled collapsing.

I found a variable amount of "older" snow underneath the new snow, not from the Oct 17-18th storm, but from earlier this week. This was absent at the base but increased to a variable 5-20 cm on easterly aspects on mid/upper mountain."

Avalanche observed on Chico Baldy above Mill Creek in Paradise Valley.  East aspect at about 9400'. Possibly a wind slab but hard to tell

Drove up Lulu Pass road 1/4 mile from hwy 212. There was 7-8" of snow that fell since November 1 on previously snow-free southerly facing meadows around 8,100'. 

Triggered a small wind slab:

-9600'

-N aspect on the NW ridge of Sphinx Mountain 

-Strong SW wind

-Noticed other small crowns, likely triggered from another party traversing the north-facing bowl at similar elevations

From e-mail: "Photo attached from near top of hyalite peak yesterday eve , 11/2. Cracking in recent hard wind slab, I had to really jump hard to make this. Walked on many other hard slabs that were well bonded. Highly variable snowpack. I think you'd be most likely to get into trouble by popping out a small hard slab pocket like this and getting magic carpeted into some thinly covered terrain."

Screenshots of webcams throughout the forecast area show new snow and snow cover on November 1. Snowfall last night dropped 2-8" throughout the forecast area.

-AM

1-3 mm faceting in front of the Montage. Clear skys and mid 20 temps

From e-mail: "I went for a quick run up to Blackmore yesterday afternoon/eve (10/21) to have a look at the snow.

Brief summary: 

-snow on SSE-S-SW-W had melted off completely, but as soon as I wrapped to SE or NW there was still an appreciable amount of snow, with dry gaps forming between snow patches. 

-E-NE-N (and flat terrain) had settled HS of 15-20cm at 8,500' and 25-30cm by 9,500'. The snow here formed a thick blanket over the terrain, covering/smoothing a lot of the roughness. All of the snow I encountered had either an ambient melt-freeze crust on the surface (thin, pencil hard), or a thicker sun crust (depending on aspect, a bit thicker, pencil hard). Presumably these crusts had melted during the day (and the previous days) but were already refreezing by late afternoon. Underneath the crusts the snow was dense, moist to wet, and quite homogenous, though I could make out some graupel grains without obvious layering at the upper end of my traveled elevation (summit, ~10,150').

-Right now the snow on the ground looks lovely! Moist/wet, dense, homogenous, filling in terrain roughness, etc. As it sits, this would make an excellent base. There is a lot of potential for strong gradients and facet development at/near the surficial crust, but the temps have been so mild that this hasn't been an issue yet (where I observed the snow). Looking into the future, we may get colder temps next week and a dusting of snow on top of the current snow... this would be a great way to turn a nicely developing base into an ugly weak layer, but only time will tell...  As far as skiability goes, a lot of the terrain that is holding snow now would quickly become skiable with a decent storm on top. Still dangerous from rocks/stumps/etc, but definitely skiable. 

-Ice: I didn't go into the main fork, but based on observations it seemed like it has been too warm for much/any ice to be forming. Tons of water moving through the landscape though, just need some cold. Also, there is a ton of snow down on the Sphinx (marginal photo below), I bet that comes in quickly when we get overnight freezes."

Skinned up the large NW snowfield on Black Mountain on Saturday July 6 to lap what remained. Surprisingly, coverage was very good. We descended just after 11am. Turns on the shallower sun-exposed aspects on the way down triggered large sluffs which ran for ~200ft on the top 2-3 inches of the snow.

Photos taken 6/10/24 around 1pm. Wet slab in Republic Creek south of Cooke. I estimate 10-20’ deep and 1000’+ wide. The past 5-6 days have been warm, and previous night there was steady rain all night into the mid morning, so not out of the question that it happened within 24 hrs, likely within the last 1-3 days.

From IG message: "I was at the bottom of the Gardner Headwall when that avalanche happened. Feel free to share..."

At approximately 15:40 a D3 avalanche on the Gardiner headwall broke.  It was triggered by a snowboarder and his dog.  The run had already been tracked by skis and snow machines but the trigger point was slightly farther skier right and appeared to trigger a convex wind slab. 
 

Several skiers, boarders, and riders were in the area but there were no burials or injuries. 

Photos from IG messages on June 1 2024: "there were two riders and a dog on the slope. One rider was partially caught and rode out when everything stopped moving. The dog was very afraid and got stuck at the crown and rocks on the lookers left. Happened about 3pm today within the first 20 riders. Started with a small slide and propagated much larger when it got closer to the rocks."

I'm sure you don't need me to tell you there are wet slides all along the east side of the Bridgers,  but here I am telling you anyway.

I was riding my ATV up Olson Creek and took a few pictures from the top, but I was pretty far away for a cell phone...

If you want them, I'll send them over.

Toured into Beehive Basin today. The added snow from the storm this week made quite a difference in coverage (which was already still really good) and it looks like the middle of winter up there. Temps were warm and the snowpack felt homogenous and stable. Planned to ski peak 10602 but we noticed some wind loading and weather coming in so we toured up and around climbers left of the prow and skied down the climbers right side of it. Skinning in we saw a lot of wet loose avalanche debris and a couple slides that looked like they slid a couple days ago from the last storm. We heard multiple slides coming off of rocks and watched a cornice break off climbers left of 4th of July Couloir. We also saw some wet loose debris that slid on 10602 on our way out of the basin. By 10am it was very warm and the snow was wet, sticky and heavy. 

shooting cracks in the top 4 to 5 inches of new snow in middle basin

Toured to the top of PK during today’s storm. Snow was very wet and heavy. We saw no other slides or signs of instability on the way up. Coming down skiers right of flippers, all 3 of us caused small slides and cracking within the new snow. I triggered the largest slide, which was 6-8” deep and 12’ wide.

Wet snow avalanche at around 9300’ on a northwest aspect in Hyalite basin. Group opinions on crown height ranged from 1-5 feet - hard to tell from a distance. 

From email 5/16/24: "I saw the photo of the fisher peak avalanche on the website. Figured I could fill in the blanks. Not a natural slide, snowmobile triggered.

At approximately 12:15pm last Saturday I was climbing above fisher bench and unintentionally set off a slab avalanche on fisher peak. I was jumping the cornice at the ridge and had a massive slope collapse, followed by shooting cracks and propagation downslope. I was able to wheelie through the crown and sidehill above the slide away from the debris area.

5 minutes before my climb, another snowmobiler put a high mark 60 ft away from where I climbed with no results. There were numerous tracks on the slope prior to this avalanche, I found the weak spot. My riding partner was watching me from a safe zone further south, as we knew there was new snow instabilities to watch out for, at a minimum.

We rode all day Friday without any obvious instabilities on similar slopes. We didn’t see the sheep mountain slide Friday morning. I took some pictures of the slide right after it happened. See attached…"

Saw a few slides that look like they propagated across the layer of new snow from the last storm (as opposed to the characteristic spring wet snow point releases). The largest was the previously reported one from Sheep. On the way out we saw a smaller slide farther south along the same ridge that looked like it broke on the new snow interface, both NE aspects.

We also saw a similar slide on a N/NW aspect of Mt Zimmer. 
 

Hard to say from a distance when these broke, but the one on Mt Zimmer looked the most recent.