Snow Observations List

The Bozeman snow ranger crew rode on Buck Ridge today and did not see any recent avalanche activity.  There was 4-6 inches of new settled new snow over very firm older snow, so the riding was somewhat deceptive (not the easiest).  We rode out to Bear creek and the wilderness boundary there and noted that the new snow had been blown around quite a bit on the ridge tops.  Some folks had done some pretty aggressive riding in the upper portion of McAtee Basin but didnt trigger anything.  We also rode down Muddy Basin a ways and found much better riding there; less sled traffic and likely better wind shelter than buck ridge proper.  We peeked into the Yellow Mules and did not see any recent activity there, either.  Hope that info is helpful!

Low winds/no snow transport when I was up there and the east face had little to no wind effect, probably 16-18in new snow. Saw this slide with about a 8-12in crown and 100ft wide on the north face, didn’t see any other activity aside from some small point releases on really steep east aspects.

From another party: Saw a sizable avalanche on the north east face of Blackmore, likely broke mid storm and was partly filled in already - estimated 20" deep, 100' wide. Had shooting cracks and collapsing while ascending northeast ridge. Hand pits showed planar results on an 8" harder slab beneath all the blower on top. 

We toured up the Ramp near Bridger Bowl Ski Area today. On our tour up we saw a few small cracks in front of our skis in the new snow. Also, there were a few crowns and sluffs on higher peaks in the range. The wind blew from the W/SW throughout the day, and it was transporting the new storm snow into harder snow drifts. We dug a pit at 8,300' on a NE facing slope. The snow was 5 feet deep (HS = 150). The weak, sugary snow below the 8-10" of new snow were not reactive in our tests (ECTX 2x). The storm snow is becoming more stable as we move further from this storm. Now, the main concern is terrain with wind-drifted snow.

In Beehive with AAI Pro 1. Storm snow measured at over 30 cm, roughly double what was reported at Big Sky/YC. 5% density. Wind Slabs slowly building from L to M N winds, both WS and Loose Dry touchy on all slopes steeper than 35 with a MFcr as the interface - basically everything W, S, E aspects below 9500 (probably above too but we didn't go that high). One skier triggered wind slab observed low in the "tyler's" slide path on a SW aspect, 8700 ft, 35 deg, SS-ASu-R1/D1-I. No evidence of active persistent slab, 11x pits @ 8500 SE, HS 170, ECTX for all.

We observed a few small crowns on steeper road cuts in Sourdough today, NW and W aspects. 4-8" at crown, 20-40' wide, ~10' vertical. They looked like storm slabs that had run overnight, maybe on a density change in the storm snow. Debris piles were small and covered with 2-3" of new snow. Low consequence, but maybe enough to surprise a kid or a dog. Photos were taken shortly above the 2 mile marker.

Just a little more than 4-7” snow in Hyalite this morning

I skied at Lick Creek area and there’s 18-24” and still dumping

Low density
In the meadows I skied (not the Main meadow - too far to break trail ) snow is on pretty firm melt / freeze crust. Heard a few whumps skinning up

We broke trail into Mt Ellis in 12-14" of new snow (8% density). At the ridgeline east wind was just starting to pick up. The new snow was also beginning to form a cohesive slab. We had no whumpfing and only minimal cracking, but with new snow and wind we decided to stay out of avalanche terrain. The snowpit structure is weak and I sunk to the ground when I stepped out of my skis. A stability test showed poor stability (ECTP2) underneath the new snow which confirmed our assessment. We skied good snow on low-angled slopes back to the car.

Was about 80% of the way up to the top of the middle meadow on history rock this morning when we remotely triggered a small avalanche from the skin track.  Slide was just new snow that had fallen within prior 24hrs.  Crown of about 8 inches, 20ish feet wide by 20 feet long.  Face that slid was east facing.  We took this as a sign to reconsider skiing something even as low key as history rock and decided to ski the skin track back.

[Dropped the pin for this observation exactly where I believe the observation to have occurred.  Took an OnX waypoint while out there to help too.]

We toured into Beehive Basin and dug a pit at the top of the west facing slope near "Tyler's" around 9,000'. The snowpack is often shallower here and weaker. HS was 116cm and we had ECTX. There were 4-6mm facets near the ground and 2-4mm facets above that which could be a problem with a large load, but seemed unlikely to cause an avalanche today. We went over the ridge and dug on an east aspect at 9,100'. Here HS was 190cm and we could see the stripe of surface hoar 75cm down. We had an ECTP29 on the surface hoar layer. Stability has been trending better with minimal recent snow, and avalanches breaking on these weak layers seem unlikely unless they are loaded by a big storm...

Snow shoed from the lower reaches of the fairy lake trail head to the lake today. Wind picked up mid morning moving a lot of loose snow around and had 1’ ground blizzards at times. Snow seemed to be pretty weak in most places I traveled creating hard conditions to snow shoe effectively off trail. I never dug a pit but in helping dig out a few snowmobiles the snow was mostly made of facets and inconsistent in structure. 

Found widespread surface hoar up storm castle creek on all sheltered slopes above 7500’

We skied up the Throne and encountered serious wind effected terrain. Some slopes were blown clear, others has ripples of sastrugi, and yet others were wind-loaded. After a pit down low yielded nothing significant, we skied higher to look for wind-loaded slopes. We found a natural crack that occurred in a wind slab, and then we dug near the ridge at a spot we typically descend. We got an ECTP9, an unstable test result. The video shows it well. Wind loads are isolated, but they could avalanche. They are easy to find: they were the only smooth parts of the slope.

Skied in the bowl to the south of Pika point on a north facing aspect.

ECTN28 on top of very large facets in the bottom ~30cm of snowpack, but no result on a CT conducted directly adjacent to the ECT.

I've included a snowpilot pit profile here. Took my best guess at grain type - it looked like the facets between 80cm and 30cm were beginning to round. 

Later in the day noticed some small (D1, R1) wet loose slides on steeper south faces.

Yesterday we toured around Alex Lowe Peak. We conducted a quick stability test on a northern aspect at the base of the peak. The result was an ECTN 13 @15cm. After the test we gave the column a few more hits (~ECTN 33) and it broke 70cm. Although it took some effort the shear was very clean. We ascended up the East face of Alex Lowe and observed isolated fractures of the top layer, about 20cm in depth, while cutting the skin track (see photo). While descending the North face the top layer sluffed readily, especially in wind loaded pockets, but no propagation was noted. During our exit at around 4pm we noticed significant wet loose releases on southern aspects (see photo). 

We rode up Denny Creek to Lionhead Ridge. After that, we rode back towards Watkins and Targhee creeks. We dug a pit on a north facing aspect at 9000’. We found 5.5’ (170 cm) of snow. We had an ECTN27 on a layer of rounding facets ~1 foot below the surface. We had this same result on an E facing aspect. We saw some old avalanche activity under Lionhead Ridge, but there were no signs of recent avalanches.

Our group toured up into Blackmore today with the goal of skiing lines on the E and N faces. We dug a pit on a representative slope near the base of Blackmore. The pit had a depth ranging from 110 to 130 cm and showed large faceted crystals near the ground with faceted crystals present up to 60cm from the surface. We performed a shovel shear test and had a failure 60 cm from the surface, which identified our layer of interest. Our first ECT had scores of ECTN3 in the newer snow and a ECTP19 at the ground. I felt that the propagation at the ground may have been affected by some undercutting from the cord and I wanted to see if we would have propagation on the layer down 60 cm so we performed another ECT directly behind the first. This test scored ECTP29 at the layer down 60 cm, which was expected. We decided to take a slightly more conservative approach to our line choice for the remainder of the day based on these results. 
 

Also of note, as we traversed a corniced ridge later in the day, two of our group members simultaneously came too close to the edge of a cornice and it broke away, but did not fall down the slope. Fortunately, everyone was alright, but it was a close call and we will definitely be more mindful next time. We believe the cornice was made more sensitive by the warm weather over the past few days. 

Poor test scores in our pit, but deep snow. 
 

HS 190cm

ECTP 22, 190-155cm, Q1 shear (fist to 4F)

ECTP 27, 155-135cm, Q1 shear (4-1F)

Shear 135-115cm, Q1 (1F)

All on 1-2mm facets. Pretty nasty layer cake, we skied less than 30° after digging. Obvious wind effect on the steep bowl, no recent activity but hard wind slabs above 9500’ pretty much everywhere  

Pit location: 9120ft, 44.94353, -111.1315

Poor snowpack structure present everywhere with facets to the ground. Some big beautiful depth hoar in pockets around the new growth down lower. I dug multiple hasty pits on the way up yielding no propagation on my ECT's until I reached 8,800' where the leeward (NW) side of the ridge had previous wind loading. There was an old wind slab ~1f+ and 70cm thick sitting on a 4f 5cm thick layer of 1mm grains of faceted snow. It failed at ECTP24 with a clean shear. I did not dig deeper than this here. Winds were light with moderate gusts, few clouds. Solars were warming but no recent activity was observed. Beautiful day for shady low angle skiing. Pictured below are crystals from the weak layer on the ECTP24 down70 @8800 NW on 30° slope. 

While on a tour today up Wheeler gulch, we noticed a few old crowns that released before the most recent snow, hard to say if they were natural or not. We also observed a most likely remote triggered small wind slab (not our tracks next to it). Solar aspects were hot. Top of snowpack was relatively stable in our 4 foot pit, some collapse but no propagation (E aspect, 8400 feet).