Northern Gallatin

East Side Flanders

Date
Activity
Skiing

We had a great tour, dug a pit on the East Side of Flanders BTL around 8700. Overall the snowpack seemed fairly stable, finding no signs of instability while skinning. But, we definitely found a concerning crust at 160 cm that was very thin on the NW slope we dug on, but noticeably stouter and shallower on a more southerly slope we skinned to. We had two failures in our ECT, both with no propagation outside of the shovel width, one ECTN16@185cm with medium-poor fracture quality. The other was ECTN23@160cm right under the small crust; it had medium fracture quality, no propagation. W had no other signs of instability, just minor sluffing in the top 10cm while skiing. We dug 120cm total of 205, all of it was dry. Great skiing today!

Region
Northern Gallatin
Location (from list)
Flanders Creek
Observer Name
Wyatt Gober

Below the North facing headwall of Flanders creek.

Date
Activity
Skiing
Snowboarding

I and one friend observed the remains of a natural avalanche below the north facing headwall up Flanders creek. It looked as if it happened within the past few days. I didn’t get close enough to really gauge the size in width but it propagated at the ground. The crown looked to be 3’-4’ deep. We tucked tail and ran after we saw this and didn’t investigate further.

Region
Northern Gallatin
Location (from list)
Flanders Creek
Observer Name
Jared Chesbro

Mt Blackmore

Date

Skied Mount Blackmore today. There was a lot more new snow than expected (6-8") and ridgetop winds were strong and gusty. Snow along the ridgelines and on E-facing slopes was touchy. Lots of cracking and collapsing. Dug a quick pit on a SE face at 9600ft and had a reactive density change within the recent new snow about 20cm down from the surface.

Saw a natural avalanche on Alex Lowe peak just south of the Hellmouth, and 4 skier triggered slides on the E face between the Blackmore and Alex Lowe Basins. Most appeared to be wind slabs, but around 1 pm a skier remote triggered a deep slab from ~50 feet away (around the corner lookers right in the attached picture). Broke at the ground, 10-15feet deep, and took out a small tree.

Region
Northern Gallatin
Location (from list)
Mt Blackmore
Observer Name
Mike Lavery

Small cornice triggered slide above Blackmore Lake

Mt Blackmore
Northern Gallatin
Code
NC-R1-D1-S
Aspect
E
Latitude
45.45990
Longitude
-110.99800
Notes

On Monday, March 22, skiers toured west of Blackmore Lake and observed a natural slide of the new snow below a cornice.

Number of slides
1
Number caught
0
Number buried
0
Trigger
Cornice fall
R size
1
D size
1
Bed Surface
S - Avalanche released within new snow
Problem Type
New Snow
Slab Thickness units
centimeters
Single / Multiple / Red Flag
Single Avalanche
Advisory Year