Northern Gallatin

Clean up on aisle hyalite!  Couple small wet slides between the retaining wall and practice rock, big enough to reduce the road to one lane. Photo: K. Marvinney

From Text message: “Clean up on aisle hyalite!  Couple small wet slides between the retaining wall and practice rock, big enough to reduce the road to one lane.”

Up at G2 on Sunday (2/23) small wet sloughs were coming down to the left & right of the climb all day. A couple bigger wet slides had totally taken out sections of the bootpack approach from G2 to Hangover. Saw big pinwheels and sticky snow all day. Most stuff available to slough probably fell already but stay alert up there.

From obs.: "Saw a recent cornice triggered wind slab off of Hardscrabble Peak, crown looked fairly fresh. There was a second crown line below the rock band. Conditions were very windy, with snow still being transported. Most snow surfaces were wind affected, but saw no cracking or collapsing." Photo: F. Miller

We skied in Maid of the Mist basin today. Solars had a sun crust preventing much snow from drifting, although the constant moderate winds out of the west were trying their best. We found multiple windslab pockets in the Fat and Skinny Maid, though these seemed fairly stubborn and were not propagating. Found some well developed (4-5 mm) basal facets in the talus of the Skinny Maid as well, and although we saw no signs of instability on this layer they are something to watch out for in steep thin terrain.

No recent avalanche activity visible except some loose wets and small cornice fall from the prior warm sunny days.

From obs: "2/17 Immediately noticed signs of wind loading and wind slabs on NE-E aspects once in the basin. New cornices have formed in the last couple days along the North ridge to the summit. Cornice collapse on the summit triggered a small wind slab on an isolated slope." Photo: R. Rintala

From obs: "2/17 Immediately noticed signs of wind loading and wind slabs on NE-E aspects once in the basin. New cornices have formed in the last couple days along the North ridge to the summit. Cornice collapse on the summit triggered a small wind slab on an isolated slope." Photo: R. Rintala