Northern Gallatin

I dug a pit above Silken Falls in the gulley. I found a weak layer of facets breaking about 10" under a wind slab (ECTP15). We did not get any cracking, but the terrain is very serious and even a small slide could be deadly. We did not feel comfortable center punching up the gully. Given how much traffic the gullies are getting, I do not think it is widespread, but it's out there and could avalanche.

Wind and snow this weekend may make this layer more unstable, so it's important to be careful crossing exposed terrain. Either rope up or tun around if it is suspect.

I dug a pit above Silken Falls in the gulley. I found a weak layer of facets breaking about 10" under a wind slab (ECTP15). We did not get any cracking, but the terrain is very serious and even a small slide could be deadly. We did not feel comfortable center punching up the gully. Given how much traffic the gullies are getting, I do not think it is widespread, but it's out there and could avalanche.

Wind and snow this weekend may make this layer more unstable, so it's important to be careful crossing exposed terrain. Either rope up or tun around if it is suspect.

Got in my first tour of the year on Mt Ellis today! I dug a pit on an E/NE aspect at about 7650', and found 90cm of snow. I could not get anything to pop in a shear test, and an extended column had no result. The snowpack very gradually gained density from fist to 1F in about as nice of a gradient as I could hope to see. There was a ~5cm layer of slightly less dense 1-1.5mm facets right at the ground, but they were surprisingly moist and packable. When I finished my ECT, I pried at the back of the column and the whole thing tipped over, taking some dirt with it. This is my singular data point for the year, but my assessment of this small area is that the snowpack is fairly weak, but unstressed where there isn't any wind loading. 

There is windloading along the ridge line but the snow is pretty unaffected on the face. 

I dug 2 pits at different locations:

Pit #1: ECT N21 N28 

Pit #2: ECTX 

Both pits were on E slopes around 7,800 ft.  Overall feeling good with the snowpack there. It does have a slightly upside down structure but couldn’t get anything to fail.  

Observed active windloading on the eastern side of Lick Creek today.

12-18 inch slab broke easily when ski cut and a small but very reactive cornice was rapidly building.

Photo: N. Roe

Two skiers triggered an avalanche while ascending the Banana Couloir on Ross Peak on the morning of 12/5/22. The skiers were approximately 150 ft from the top of the couloir when the avalanche broke 20 ft above the upper skier. The slide broke in wind drifted snow 6 inches deep and approximately 30 ft wide, across most of the couloir. The lower skier was waiting in a "safe spot on the side" but was also caught by the slide. The slide ran ~600 vertical feet, pulling out a deeper pocket of snow (1.5-2 ft deep) midway down the path. Both skiers were fully submerged as they were carried, but ended up partially buried near the toe of the debris. One skier had snow packed into his mouth and underneath his eyelids. They returned to the trailhead under their own power. 

We skinned into the Divide Peak cirque to check out the conditions in Hyalite for the first time this season. On our tour we saw a couple of small R1-D1 slides that had broken within the new snow. At our first pit we saw HS at 124 cm with 10 cm of new snow. We had a ECTP 30 on facets 64 cm down from the surface. Next we dug on a SE aspect with a HS of 127 cm and 15 cm of new snow. We got an ECTN-3 within the new and old snow. More importantly, the wind was picking up throughout the day, and it was transporting snow. Our primary concern today was new snow, and in the next few days it will be wind drifted snow.