Large Avalanches in Tepee Basin

Large Avalanches in Tepee Basin

Date
Activity
Snowmobiling

We rode into Tepee Basin and stopped at a recent rider-triggered avalanche that happened on 02/07/2024, ob and video. This avalanche was very large in size, we estimated it to be 3/4 of a mile long, 3-4' deep and ran full path the flats below. The clouds parted long enough for us to seen the entire crown from afar, it was quite continuous and connected multiple smaller avalanche paths. 

We continued riding to the wilderness boundary. While walking down to our pit side we felt as large collpase and saw snow fall from the trees around us. Our snowpit was on a N facing slope at 9500'. Here, weak snow low in the snowpack is now buried about a meter deep. We got unstable results of ECTP26. While riding away from our snowpit and stepping off snowmobiles we again triggered a large collapse. Collpasing continued as we worked through the trees. 

From here we rode along the wilderness boundary towards another area to look for more recent avalanche activity. While crossing a flat meadow above a steep slope the rider breaking trail triggered an avalanche from 30' away. This avalanche broke several hundred feet wide, 2-3' deep and ran full path to the valley bottom. Additionally, around the corner we saw another recent avalanche that likely occured naturally within the last few days. 

Overall conditions felt very unstable today. Recent avalanches and collapsing were clear signs on instability. Even if we didn't see these signs of instability, knowing the snowpack is weak and has recently received a lot of new snow was enough information for us to plan to stay off of and out from underneath avalanche terrain today. 

Region
Southern Madison
Location (from list)
Tepee Basin
Observer Name
Zach Peterson