Trip Planning for Northern Gallatin

Skiers in Hyalite Canyon observed a small wind slab avalanche just below the ridgeline in Divide Cirque (below cornice on the peak in the center of the photo). Photo: T. Saulnier

Skiers on Mount Blackmore observed cracking within the freshly wind-loaded snow on a southeast-facing slope just below the ridge (11/24/21). Photo: J Schack

This powder cloud from a large avalanche was seen on Black Mountain, up Pine Creek outside Livingston. Located outside our advisory area it is a sign of unstable snow, likely from wind-loading, that can be found throughout southwest Montana. Photo: Anon

Skiers found a shallow snowpack and very windy conditions today. Snow was moving and loading slopes. Photo: H. Darby

From an obsevation: Skied up towards Arrowhead Bowl from Fairy Lake road. Snowpack is still very thin in the trees as you ascend towards the ridge. Strong westerly winds and exposed rocks deterred us from skiing the bowl itself. Down low we found variable conditions ranging from a few cm of graupel to a few cm of windboard and ice in places. We dug a pit at 8140 feet, 143º SE. The snowpack is 55 cm deep with a very distinct knife hard crust layer from 0-20cm above the ground, we were thinking that could be due to a rain on snow event that fell on top of the October snow. There is also a distinct knife crust 40 cm above the ground with new snow/wind blown snow on top of that. Weather today was mostly clear with a few scattered clouds and consistent winds, with very strong gusts from the west. Photo: H. Darby

A natural avalanche on Saddle Peak on 11/10/21. Strong winds drifted recent snow into thick slabs near the ridge. This slide was probably one of those wind slabs breaking and/or being triggered by a cornice fall. Photo: P. Hinz

From e-mail 11/7/21: "...Once in airplane bowl we saw multiple large slides that ran last night, syn-storm. Most of which came down from the East face of Sac. A few 200-300’ wide and running the length of the bowl.,,, attached is a grainy cell phone pic of the slides in Airplane Bowl." -Anonymous.

From email 11/4/21: "...noticed two small wet loose avalanches in the east facing bowl between Pomp and Hardscrabble Peaks." Photo: H. Darby

From e-mail 11/4/21: "Hiking up in the Bridger Range from Sacagawea Pass and noticed no faceting of the current snowpack. The snow near the pass and on the ridge is very wind affected as is to be expected and dropping into the bowl on the east side of the Pass the snowpack there has a distinct sun crust. Dug around a little bit at 8600 ft on a NE aspect and found a sun crust of about two inches with what felt like rounded grains below that. Even in the direct sun, the crust was taking a long time to rewarm and was pretty slippery..." Photo: H. Darby