Northern Gallatin

Toured up to the east ridge of Blackmore.  About what you’d expect. Old snow was only about 20cms deep.  Mix of crusts and facets depending on aspect.  New snow from the past few days ranged from 10cms-30cms in the most wind loaded areas.  Experienced whoomfing and collapsing while skinning in wind loaded areas.  Very bony skiing off the lower ridge.  Walked the trail back down due to lack snow.

Climbers in the Dribbles area of Hyalite Canyon collapsed a slab of wind-drifted snow resulting in a spider web of shooting cracks. Photo: Sam

Climbers in the Dribbles area of Hyalite Canyon collapsed a slab of wind-drifted snow resulting in a spider web of shooting cracks. Photo: Sam

Climb above Dribbles today. No surprise but where yesterday/last nights new snow has been drifted onto old snow, there is a wind slab problem. We found this combo in gullys above 8000 ft, slab depths to 50 cm, interface is 1-2mm FC. There are also graupel layers within the new snow that were reactive but less concern about those. We experienced numerous collapses and triggered a size 1 pocket that moved 6 in downhill. Just needs a steeper slope angle or a bit more slab and things will get interesting. 
 

Big picture with all the kooks coming to town for icefest it’s kind of funky conditions up there right now, lots of bare ice/rock making for a fall hazard in many places we normally don’t, and poor structure in the gullys, especially higher up. You can go from bare rock/ice to 1.5 m snow in just a couple steps. With continued wind and/or precip things could get active.

Was splitboarding up near lions head ridge today. Made some bad decisions and kicked off a good slide in a NE facing chute. Was with 2 buddies, 1 of which skied the line 3 weeks ago.  Underneath about a foot of new powder snow there was a firm crust that seemed like it was old  hard windslab in the gut of the chute, and I think a sun crust on the riders left side(East aspect). We had 2 spots where we were planning to re group at, first was a small cubby area right before a slight rollover about 75 ft from the top. I dropped first, made some turns down toward the pulloff, as I pulled in, I triggered a good size slab that propagated maybe 40-50 ft across, at the rollover as I carved into the pulloff.  Pulled  all snow  out of the chute down to the ground. Seemed to have failed on sugary facets on ground/ice crust close to the ground... 

At 9,000 feet there was about an inch of new snow. It was calm at first light, but by mid morning winds were gusty and blowing straight down the gullies. It stripped what little snow there was and did not create an avalanche hazard. However, the 6+" in the gullies are all faceted, and with even a thin wind-load it was easy to get cracking. With snowfall predicted for the next 48 hours and again later this week, we'll need to be on the lookout for pockets or gullies of wind blown snow.

At 9,000 feet there was about an inch of new snow. It was calm at first light, but by mid morning winds were gusty and blowing straight down the gullies. It stripped what little snow there was and did not create an avalanche hazard. However, the 6+" in the gullies are all faceted, and with even a thin wind-load it was easy to get cracking. With snowfall predicted for the next 48 hours and again later this week, we'll need to be on the lookout for pockets or gullies of wind blown snow.

From FB message: "Hi! I’d like to report 2 natural slides that were witnessed in the Flanders fork of Hyalite on Friday 11/24 on the east facing aspect of the canyon. Both avalanches came from a single snow field above “Bobo Like” ice climb. These slides happened at approximately 7:45am and 8:15am"