Northern Gallatin

Seen on a ski tour on 1/08. From Obs: Notice a few natural avalanches and one skier triggered avalanche near of the top of Blackmore. Looked as though it was a ski cut that popped the slab. Photo: S. Lowe

Skinned up to Blackmore 01/08 to ski the East shoulder. Found that it had not snowed as much as it had in town the night before. Possibly 2-3” at lower elevations and 3-4” at higher elevations. There was some isolated wind loading in the basin at lower elevations and more widespread loading near the ridge tops. Did not experience any collapsing but did notice a few natural avalanches and one skier triggered avalanche near of the top of Blackmore. Looked as though it was a ski cut that popped the slab. Skied a low angle, non-wind loaded slope with a few lovely turns before smoking plenty of rocks on the way down the trail. 

From email: "Made it to the ridge of Hyalite peak yesterday. Mild winds ~10mph at around 1pm. Seemed to be ~6" of fresh snow in the basin. No instabilities in our pit at 9300ft; fist hardness throughout. 85cm depth. Great skiing in the basin. Off the ridge, it was a little firmer with a wind crust. There was a small natural wind slab avalanche on an east aspect a few hundred feet SW of the saddle."

We toured up into the Maid today to see how conditions were looking. Low snow down low and starting to stack up in the basins. We dug a pit on a East aspect at 9500, the pit showed a 100cm deep snowpack. Large facets were found from the ground up to 40cm. There was a hard crust layer at 40cm, above the crust layer was a dense slab that hasnt turned completely rotten yet. The snowpack was dense above the crust layer, but less consolidated towards the surface (upside down). We had an ECTN 21 at 40cm. We also observed numerous wind slabs that relaeased naturally during the day on N-NE aspects near ridgelines (6-12 inch crowns). We also found touchy wind slabs on micro terrain lower in the basin. 

Gusty winds were transporting snow into drifts that formed cohesive wind slabs. Variable snow condition with a notable sun crust under the drifted snow (45.44653, -110.99872). Witnessed a dry slab natural avalanche start from near the summit of Blackmore mountain that ran into the main bowl. Multiple other observations of small loose avalanche activity on Blackmore mountain. The trail out was exceptionally rocky.

We toured into Bacon Rind which involved navigating downfall at the start which became easier as the snow got deeper. We found 2 feet of snow on the ground, all of it sugary facets capped with big feathers of surface hoar. We had no whumpfing or cracking and saw no avalanches. We dug 2 snowpits and got no breaks in our stability test because the weak, sugary snow did not have a denser slab sitting above it (ECTX). The danger is LOW, yet new snow, even a small amount, may ramp the danger up. For now, it is weak and stable. The skiing progressively got worse as we descended, which was no surprise.