Storm Snow on The Ramp

Over the last two days, 27" of snow and nearly 3" of SWE fell in the Bridger Range. Today, Dave and I toured out to the Ramp to see how the storm snow was shaping up. Visibility was limited at ridgetops, but we did see several storm snow avalanches just north of the Bridger Bowl boundary that failed yesterday. 

We dug a pit at the bottom of the Ramp on an E aspect at 7900'. We found 24" of new snow which had nearly doubled the snowpack, leaving over five and half foot deep (HS 171) snowpack in this area. In our snowpit test, we got propagation (ECTP 24) at the storm snow interface. We experienced no collapsing or cracking on our tour today. 

We decided to continue up the Ramp, but had a discussion before we entered the steepest portion of the route. Overall, our snowpit showed us signs that the storm snow has begun to settle out. Plus, we had not experienced any cracking or collapsing - but - as Mark mentioned two days ago in Cooke City, "a lack of collapsing doesn't override all the other red flags". Snow needs time to adjust from big changes, and 3" of water is an enormous load on our December snowpack. We chose the conservative option and turned, skiing excellent powder back into Bridger Bowl.