Small slab avalanche and wind-loading on the north face of Mt Blackmore. Photo: B. Richards
Winds actively drifting the new snow into unstable slabs. Photo: GNFAC
Saw the most recent post on instagram of not finding surface hoar near Mt. Blackmore. I toured up a ridgeline that divides Lewis Creek and Hyalite Creek in paradise valley. I saw surface hoar the entire way up the ridge on all aspects. I believe it formed the night of 9th. I thought I should let you know that there was some surface hoar not to far away as the crow flies.
Skied the northeast ridge off Mt. Blackmore on Saturday, 1/16. No obvious signs of instability on the ascent (no whumphing, collapsing, cracking), and no signs of recent natural avalanches. Dug a pit at 9565 ft., SE facing. CT yielded no results, also did an ECT which had no results (ECTX). There's an ice crust at about 21cm from the ground sitting over facets. While we didn't get any fractures, our column slid cleanly on the crust when we pulled it. We chose to ski low angle terrain- the snowpack is clearly weak and shallow, there was wind loading (you could see continued wind transport as the day went on), and the danger was considerable.
Saw this natural avalanche on a southeast aspect in Divide Basin.
Got a look round while climbing Cleo’s today. Extensive scouring, lots of exposed rock and dirt in the main fork. I observed the slope below the N Face of Palace Butte to be heavily wind effected as well (N aspect, around 9k). No surprises really. The wind took down a lot of mature timber!
Skiing low angle powder at Telemark Meadows today (-8 F starting out; warmed to about 22 F with pretty constant wind blowing). Good conditions.
Several major collapses skinning up along the forest edge. The freezing rain crust from December 19 is now about 24-30" below the surface. Depth hoar below the freezing rain crust.
We did a short tour yesterday in the middle of the storm into the Republic Creek drainage. Skies were overcast with light to heavy snow falling at times. Winds were gusting at times 60-80 mph, enough to blow you over if you weren't careful. Variable snowpack, wet and heavy down low until about 8800 feet then it got colder and less dense but was blowing around all over the place. The new snow was setting up very slabby in places with cracking expanding outward from the skin track and storm snow easily sliding at every kick turn. We did not dig a pit and instead opted to bail out at about 9400 feet and ski tighter trees back down to the creek bottom and home. The winds had stripped snow on the windward side with some larger drifts on the leeward side. However, in the basin, winds were coming from every direction at times. Not a very scientific observation but wanted to share what it was like in the storm up there yesterday. Caution really needs to be practiced as there are dense storm slabs sitting on large surface hoar/facets that had setup from the days of high pressure and winds may have deposited large amounts of snow in places.
