65 cm on the ground on a north aspect ~9700’. East aspects were getting heavily loaded above tree line and probably have a substantially deeper snowpack. ECTP-23 on a crust/facet sandwich 25 cm down (right below the old/new interface). There was another thin FC layer midway down and already some large depth hoar grains at the ground. Deep Slabs 2021 here we come!!
The BBWC (Bridger Bowl Wind Cloud) on Tuesday 10/27 accompanied 50-60 mph gusts. This strong wind drifted recent snow into slabs that could avalanche on steep slopes. Early season snow means we need to be thinking about and managing avalanche hazard when we travel in the mountains. Photo: GNFAC
Beautiful skiing today out in Beehive. I skied the SW couilar that empties down into the basin a couple of times, pretty sure it has a name but I’m not sure what it’s called. Then dropped off the back side and skied a N facing shot into Bear Basin and skinned back up the N side of the ridge and came back out to the Beehive trailhead. I found very stable conditions with only about 2” of new snow on the older crust, up to 10” where the wind blew it in. The S facing stuff was dreamy, well bonded, I dug several pits and got nothing, ECT X. The snow on the ground is very warm and rotten and full of water. The ice on the ground isn’t even frozen. The new snow only reacted once in a very small plate shaped crack coming off my ski as I was skinning. I jumped around as hard as I could in a few different places and even where it was wind loaded and I couldn’t get anything to move even a little bit. Between the most recent crust, which is very supportable, and the new snow is a layer of graupel. The new snow is super cold on top and the snow on the ground is super warm! There is 2-4’ of snow where I was and only about a foot lower down. Wind affect is really obvious, there are ripples and signs of loading everywhere. I avoided several tempting looking lines because of obvious wind slabs and heavy loading. The wind slabs are more prevalent on the N facing stuff. When we dropped onto the N facing shot, it was way slabbier and firmer on the surface from the wind. It’s a nice combination of wind scoured and wind slabbed but still couldn’t get anything to move. Also no signs of natural activity anywhere, not even point releases on the sunny slopes.
Today I skinned in and skied around the E side of the N ridges coming down off of Blackmore. The snow is about 2’ deep off of the ridge down to the bottom of the bowl on the east faces, with variations where the wind has loaded/stripped the snow. The wind was gusting out of the N/NW/W. I observed some natural loose dry sluffs on the N face and the E face off the N ridge. They look like they came down in the last 24 hours with this new snow and wind; they were still fairly defined when I saw them.
Wind-drifted snow avalanched naturally in a few areas of the northern ranges yesterday (10/23). This photo was near Fairy Lake in the Bridger Range. Photo: B. VandenBos
A skier on Mt Blackmore "observed some natural loose dry sluffs on the N face and the E face off the N ridge. They look like they came down in the last 24 hours with this new snow and wind; they were still fairly defined when I saw them." Photo: Jeanine Dalimata
