Snow Observations List

We rode into Tepee Basin and saw two recent avalanches. One looked like it happened this morning on a treed ridgeline, 1-1.5' deep 150-200' wide. The other looked like it maybe happened yesterday, on a heavily wind-loaded slope below some cornices, 2-2.5' deep and 250-300' wide. We had brief good visibility of the major avalanche terrain in the upper basin and didn't see any other slides. We measured 12" of snow = 1.5" of SWE that fell since Thursday. Snow was drifted near ridgelines and in the highest meadows. There was some cracking in the new snow around sled skis, but it was minimal.

We were descending through the the trees off bacon rind when we skied upon a natural avalanche that appeared to be from today. The slide began at the top of a small clearing in the woods and went down through the trees below. However, we could not see how far down it went. The crown was roughly 3-4 feet deep and propagated about a hundred feet or so. This was on the eastern facing aspect of bacon rind just south of the normal ascent trail.

While touring in the Bacon Rind area today, our group experienced three audible collapses, one of which was extremely large and thundering. All of these collapses were experienced in the flat meadow areas below the typically skied slopes. 

We rode up Taylor Fork around Skyline Ridge towards Cabin Creek. We found 12" of new snow had fallen over the last 24 hours. With poor visibility, we were unable to see any recent avalanche activity except for a small recent avalanche that happened near Beaver Slide. This was right next to a much larger slide that Doug and Ian had seen on 02/14/2024. While riding back we had a good view of the backside of Skyline Ridge above us and again saw no recent avalanche activity. However, many slopes had been stripped by recent winds. Strong winds and a foot of new snow that fell onto a weak snowpack kept us off of and out from underneath steep slopes, and recent snow made for pleasant riding conditions. 

My brother and I toured into the skillet at Bacon Rind. We dug a pit at the top of the skillet, east aspect, 9000 feet. Total snow depth was 115cm. We observed CT14 and ECTP25, 2.5 feet or 75 cm down, propagating on large old facets below a hard slab. That slab was dense and carrying some energy when collapsed in our column tests. We also observed multiple suspected week old natural avalanches on northeast aspects.

We skinned up the shoulder just south of the Bacon Rind skillet, through the upper meadows to the top of the Skillet and descended a similar route. 

On our ascent we got no cracking or collapsing, but we did get some big collapses while we were descending through the trees in the bottom 1/3 of the ski run. We dug on SE and NE aspects in the upper meadows at around 8600 ft. ECTPs in the 20s on the surface hoar at the top of the December facets. 

The skillet slid sometime recently. Based on the snow on top I'm guessing Thursday-Friday last week (Feb 15-16th), but it could have happened up to a week earlier. Broke ~2 ft deep, 150 ft wide, and it was hard to tell how far it ran, but I'm estimating 200 vertical feet.

We stuck to our conservative plan and enjoyed great low angle powder skiing and then bushwacking back to the car. 

Nothing new, but we were in Tepee Creek today.  Three of us dropped into a flat meadow on a (wide) ledge, and after sitting there for a minute or less, we all felt a "whump" and collapse. While the meadow had some small rolling terrain, it was flat overall.

 the snow is still bad! We were on top of bacon rind in the YNP, and dug a pit for fun and education of one of our party members. Experienced some BIG whoomphs on the way up and got very unstable scores. A Q2 CT19 and ECTP24, both around 85cm down into the snow pack (on the top of the very faceted layer we're seeing all over the advisory area. 

Best,

Joe

From IG: 2 avalanches from either this morning or yesterday at the bottom of Skyline ridge 2’ at the crown

From FB 02/17/24: "Observed runout debris from a small avalanche on a south facing forested slope in Upper Tepee Basin. Shows avalanches can occur through forested areas."

North facing slope partially treelined, not heavily windloaded. Rider triggered, Ran 100yards downhill with large debris through trees, broke 2-3' deep at the crown sliding on near earth facets. 1 rider partially caught, airbag deployed, self-extracted with no injuries.

Bozeman Snow Rangers patrolled Taylor Fork, arriving to 120 rigs in the parking lot. Lots of people stoked for a Blue bird powder day. New storm snow seemed to total ~16 inches up high. We saw numerous recent slab avalanches, some large; and parties reporting widespread collapsing. We observed large natural avalanches from afar on the west side of Snowslide Mountain, and the east aspect of a peak south of Woodward Mountain. We observed these from a few miles away and were probably several feet deep and a few hundred feet wide. We observed another, probably rider triggered avalanche in Wapiti Creek that broke on old snow near the ground ~2 feet deep and ~60ft across.

Temps were ~10F. winds were calm. Sunny.

Very different feeling from 1 week prior - no collapsing, no cracking, no recent avalanches. We stayed on conservative terrain but saw others venturing out a bit with no noticable activity. 

Burnt trees just south of Bacon Rind.   Elevation approx. 7600, eastern face, 30-35 deg. slope. I stopped skiing near the top of the steep section.  Warning  my 3 partners not to descend and to traverse to their left (north).  When I attempt to also exit to the left there was a very noticeable whomp and settling, a crack appeared across and up slope running 50+ ft.  I continued exiting to the north with no further incidents.  

We took advantage of great visibility and rode in from Taylor Fork up to Sage Basin and then over the Beaver Slide and around Skyline Ridge into Cabin Creek. We saw three recent avalanches along the headwall of Sage Basin and one in Sunlight Basin. Two of the slides in Sage and the Sunlight slide looked to be naturals that broke a couple days ago. All of the slide looked to be 2-3 ft deep, breaking on the early season weak snow at the bottom of the pack. One of the slides in Sage broke ~700 ft wide. The other slide in Sage looked to have been remotely triggered by riders yesterday from ~100 ft away. 

Beautiful sunny weather and riding conditions today. No cracking or collapsing observed today.

It's going to be heads up as it starts snowing again. Expect to easily trigger avalanches if you get on or near any steep slopes in the next few days.

Wind was calm and there was no new snow overnight. A small whumpf in the skin track was followed by a massive one a few minutes later. I can count on one hand the number of times I got whumpfs in a skin track...rare indeed. The second one was so big it had us both deeply concerned. We peeled off the skin track after deciding to not cross a gully and soon found debris from a sizeable avalanche that released a couple days ago about 500' above us. We dug in the flank and had 100 cm of snow, 60 cm new from last week. The snowfall during the Avalanche Warning, doubled the depth and more than doubled the snow water equivalent of the snowpack. It was a large load and avalanches are breaking underneath the new snow.

Karl was using his 100 cm long Norwegian Battle Saw (pic)...a bit overkill.

We got the same feedback that Dave and Doug did on 2/5/24 - collapsing every time we stepped out of the skin track or turned with any force, as well as a few sizable collapses triggered from inside the skin track. Very touchy, skied very well. Stayed well away from avy terrain.

From FB 2/10/24: "Another view of White peak south along ridge in UPR TeePee basin slide from wailer this week. Looked like was from a rider earlier this week. This view was from the slopes south of Lee Metcalf Wilderness boundary looking toward SW."

Photos of a natural avalanche in the NE/E facing bowl of Ernie Miller Ridge. Likely happened in the last few days. 

We saw one other small avalanche in the trees below the ridge too far for a decent photo. 

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.