Large avalanche in Taylor-Hilgard

Large avalanche in Taylor-Hilgard

Date
Activity
Snowmobiling

From an email:

We rode back to the wilderness boundary in Bear Creek on Buck Ridge today.  The riding was pretty good; new snow from earlier in the week had some wind effect but there were very few hard wind slabs to be found (maybe on the highest most exposed ridges).  The day started calm but the wind picked up after noon.  We didn’t notice any freshly drifting snow but some of the southern exposures were getting a little wet. 

We didn’t see any recent avalanches in the terrain on or immediately around Buck, however we did spot 1 medium and one older, large avalanche in the Taylor-Hilgard range.  The northern most one was smaller and was a pocket just below a ridgetop that appeared to be very wind loaded.  The other appeared to be an entire basin that had slid, the crown was visible around the upper third of the bowl and there was a large, coarse debris pile in the bottom.  This one was east of Koch Peak, above tumbledown creek.  Couldn’t get a good picture of either but could see through binoculars pretty well.  Aspect on both was N/ NE and both slid before the snow earlier this week, hard to say when. 

(estimated 4/02, GNFAC)

Region
Southern Madison
Location (from list)
Koch Peak
Observer Name
Kyle Marvinney