Stable Dry Snow, Unstable Wet Snow in Bridgers

We toured through Bridger Bowl to the top of Slushman's Lift. The deeper areas are around 2 feet deep. We uncovered many rocks during our descent. 

Wet Snow: We headed home by 1:00 PM, but that was enough time to see snow on southeastern and south-facing terrain warm up. Yesterday, there was an R2-D2 wet snow avalanche out of the run Close Call (see photo). This is a rocky, south-facing run. We saw limited pinwheels of warming snow coming out of rocky areas, and it seemed like planar snow surfaces would start to slide wet. Hopefully, things will cool down soon.  

Dry Snow: We did not see any signs of dry snow instability. Two pits were "right-side-up," meaning softer snow at the surface and firmer snow below with ECTX results. This is a good sign for stability. If folks push hard into steep avalanche terrain, someone will probably find an isolated pocket of instability, but we are looking good for now. The primary concern for now is how much the surface snow will weaken and facet before the next storm. Despite air temperatures near 40 degrees F, the snow surface was 21 degrees F. These large temperature gradients will drive rapid faceting.