Northern Gallatin

A skier triggered avalanche on the SE face of Mt. Blackmore. Crown is marked.

On 12/11, skiers noticed this recent D2 avalanche on the E aspect of Blackmore. As they skinned up the SE meadow, they experienced three audible whumpfs. Photo: Eric H

Toured up toward Mt. Blackmore today with the goal of skiing the mellow SE facing meadow and familiarizing myself with the current unstable snowpack. While stopping for lunch I dug a quick pit out of curiosity and performed a CT at 8757’ on a NW aspect with HS 85cm. Results were CT11 down 17 cm within the new snow on a hardness change and a CT13 down 35 cm on old facets. Moving farther up in the basin we noticed the pictured recent D2 avalanche on the E aspect of Blackmore. As we skinned up the SE meadow, we experienced three audible whumpfs. Otherwise great skiing was found today albeit a bit thin!

I went with a party of 4 to check out the ice climb Tequila Tour - what we believe to be "Willis Route" in the guidebook.  This is the next significant drainage south of Horsetail Falls on the west side of the east fork valley.

Around the base of the climb (45.43740, -110.91324), we found on an unshaded south facing aspect a snowpack of 30-40cm.  Icy crust layer for the bottom 8-10cm with 4F harness and then very fluffy new snow on top.

Lower down near the creek, the snowpack is thinner - much of the recent snow and wind transported snow is up in the trees.

Today, there was a quick dump of new snow, lasting about 30 minutes.  The sun came out briefly afterwards.

Our party got to the bottom of P1 and turned around.  While we knew the gully between pitches is relatively low angle, we were a bit uncertain about the size and positioning of hanging snowfields above and knew that today's forecast was considerable.  Something to revisit later.