Northern Gallatin

From email 1/9/22: "Skier triggered cornice failure avalanche. Broke at skis 10-12 feet from the lip. No one caught or injured."

From email 1/9/22: "Skier triggered cornice failure avalanche. Broke at skis 10-12 feet from the lip. No one caught or injured."

Toured up to the summit of Mt. Ellis this morning. The weather was clear skies, sunny, and a slight westerly breeze up top and along the ridge. Along the ridge we saw many small to medium sized cornices. We knocked a couple small ones off on to the slope below and they slid on a very firm wind loaded surface (pictures). There is quite a bit of firm wind loaded along on the ridge but we saw no shooting cracks or other signs of instability. We dug a pit on the East face just below the summit to evaluate the layer of facets near the ground and got an ECTX result. All signs were pointing to good stability and we enjoyed a very nice run down the Mt. Ellis Direct decent. 

Dug snow pit south of Flanders Mountain on East facing aspect @ 9000ft. Result was ECTN 27 failing on ground level facets. Approximately 95 cm of snow at non wind transported areas. Evidence of wind loading above alpine. Skied below tree line.  

It was easy to crack the thin wind slabs that formed from strong wind the last 2 days. They were not propagating, but cracking indicated potential instability on wind drifts. Photo: GNFAC

Strong wind in the previous 2 days sculpted the snow surface into waves of sastrugi. Photo: GNFAC

Wind in the last 2 days gusted 45-70 mph and stripped some starting zones down to dirt in Beehive Basin. Photo: GNFAC

Beautiful day on Ellis with the classic Ellis snow pack, i.e., shallow, depth hoar, no supporting base.  Snow pit at top of the burn, 85 cm depth.  Depth hoar at ground up to 10-15 cm, smaller grain size above.  ECTX.  The column under the shovel blade failed completely at 25 hits in compression, no shear plane.  We experienced no signs of snow instability.  Skied one run down the burn being light on skis, then skied out via our super secret exit route in the trees where the skiing was not any better until lower on the mountain.  Moonshine trail was super fast with the added obstacle of people HIKING up (another attribute of the New Bozeman). 

Question for Ian.  For your recent post from Ellis did you ascend/descend via saddle between Big and Little Ellis?  Just curious.