Northern Gallatin

1-3 mm faceting in front of the Montage. Clear skys and mid 20 temps

From e-mail: "I went for a quick run up to Blackmore yesterday afternoon/eve (10/21) to have a look at the snow.

Brief summary: 

-snow on SSE-S-SW-W had melted off completely, but as soon as I wrapped to SE or NW there was still an appreciable amount of snow, with dry gaps forming between snow patches. 

-E-NE-N (and flat terrain) had settled HS of 15-20cm at 8,500' and 25-30cm by 9,500'. The snow here formed a thick blanket over the terrain, covering/smoothing a lot of the roughness. All of the snow I encountered had either an ambient melt-freeze crust on the surface (thin, pencil hard), or a thicker sun crust (depending on aspect, a bit thicker, pencil hard). Presumably these crusts had melted during the day (and the previous days) but were already refreezing by late afternoon. Underneath the crusts the snow was dense, moist to wet, and quite homogenous, though I could make out some graupel grains without obvious layering at the upper end of my traveled elevation (summit, ~10,150').

-Right now the snow on the ground looks lovely! Moist/wet, dense, homogenous, filling in terrain roughness, etc. As it sits, this would make an excellent base. There is a lot of potential for strong gradients and facet development at/near the surficial crust, but the temps have been so mild that this hasn't been an issue yet (where I observed the snow). Looking into the future, we may get colder temps next week and a dusting of snow on top of the current snow... this would be a great way to turn a nicely developing base into an ugly weak layer, but only time will tell...  As far as skiability goes, a lot of the terrain that is holding snow now would quickly become skiable with a decent storm on top. Still dangerous from rocks/stumps/etc, but definitely skiable. 

-Ice: I didn't go into the main fork, but based on observations it seemed like it has been too warm for much/any ice to be forming. Tons of water moving through the landscape though, just need some cold. Also, there is a ton of snow down on the Sphinx (marginal photo below), I bet that comes in quickly when we get overnight freezes."

A hiker on Mt. Blackmore noted 5-10 inches of snow on east through north aspects. Photo: B. VandenBos

A hiker on Mt. Blackmore noted 5-10 inches of snow on east through north aspects. Photo: B. VandenBos

On October 17, rain turned to snow and blanketed the mountains of southwest Montana with a fresh coat of snow. Photo: Yellowstone Club Webcam

On October 17, rain turned to snow and blanketed the mountains of southwest Montana with a fresh coat of snow. Photo: Bridger Bowl Webcams

The 26th annual fundraiser for the Friends of the GNFAC is October 25 at the Emerson Cultural Center. More info and tickets at: https://events.eventgroove.com/event/Powder-Blast-2024-101627

From IG message: "I was at the bottom of the Gardner Headwall when that avalanche happened. Feel free to share..."

Toured into Beehive Basin today. The added snow from the storm this week made quite a difference in coverage (which was already still really good) and it looks like the middle of winter up there. Temps were warm and the snowpack felt homogenous and stable. Planned to ski peak 10602 but we noticed some wind loading and weather coming in so we toured up and around climbers left of the prow and skied down the climbers right side of it. Skinning in we saw a lot of wet loose avalanche debris and a couple slides that looked like they slid a couple days ago from the last storm. We heard multiple slides coming off of rocks and watched a cornice break off climbers left of 4th of July Couloir. We also saw some wet loose debris that slid on 10602 on our way out of the basin. By 10am it was very warm and the snow was wet, sticky and heavy. 

From obs 5/23/24: "shooting cracks in the top 4 to 5 inches of new snow in middle basin" Photo: N. Greiner