Northern Gallatin

You guys probably already know about this one, but if not then here’s a photo of what appeared to be a natural D2 underneath the Maid today.

At 6450 feet on a north facing aspect on Little Mt. Ellis I found a snow depth of 75 cm. I dug a pit and got a Ct -7. Ect - 18, both failing on ground facets at 15-20 cm depth. I didn’t see any slides, but I did feel and hear one whumpf on the way up. Needless to say, I kept it low angle on the way down. Hope you can use this data. Thanks for all the great work you do!

From obs: "The southwest corner of the cirque slid on the storm slab and broke 1200-1500’ wide, an east aspect had a crown that exceeded 6’ in places, and the south face of Divide Peak broke 2-6’ deep and ran full track. I observed no collapsing or cracking, but the signs of instability were still pretty clear." Photo: S Reinsel

From obs: "The southwest corner of the cirque slid on the storm slab and broke 1200-1500’ wide, an east aspect had a crown that exceeded 6’ in places, and the south side of Divide broke 2-6’ deep and ran full track. I observed no collapsing or cracking, but the signs of instability were still pretty clear." Photo: S Reinsel

From obs: "The southwest corner of the cirque slid on the storm slab and broke 1200-1500’ wide, an east aspect had a crown that exceeded 6’ in places, and the south side of Divide broke 2-6’ deep and ran full track. I observed no collapsing or cracking, but the signs of instability were still pretty clear." Photo: S Reinsel

I skied around the little hills in the basin south of Divide Peak today, and saw quite a bit of recent activity. The southwest corner of the cirque slid on the storm slab and broke 1200-1500’ wide, an east aspect had a crown that exceeded 6’ in places, and the south side of Divide broke 2-6’ deep and ran full track. I am not sure what the bigger slides failed on, and would not feel particularly confident guessing, but things up high are active. We dug a pit on the south side of Palace Butte on Saturday and found what appeared to be a very stable snowpack, but seeing Divide slide on the same aspect is evidence that a snowpit is only part of the puzzle. I observed no collapsing or cracking, but the signs of instability were still pretty clear.

Toured into west pine today for a short outing. Got a handful of large and small whomps. Dug a snow pit on a south east aspect at 6800’ I got ectn however I had a log running through the side of my pit so I think that altered my results. I did take my shovel afterwards and did a pull test and the recent storm slab (30”) came off pretty easy.