Northern Gallatin

Solar input triggered small cornice collapse while booting up fat maid that ran by our group, but did not trigger anything from its impact on the slope. We saw many wet avalanches both small and large, mostly loose, but one slab that came down the south east face of Bole after skiing the pinner. Due to this information we chose not to ascend the south facing gully that follows the ridge north of Bole and ski the north couloir into Alex Lowe basin. On the north aspects we found punchy, difficult, wind affected snow from the most recent storm. It was cold, dry snow, completely un-reactive in our tests, but hooky challenging skiing. 

Firm wind / sun crust on most West and South facing aspects - 1 - 2" thick

Backside of Lick Creek Ridge skied very well, still evidence of the avalanche that you triggered under the cornice, but 3 - 4 tracks had sent that cornice since the last storm cycle with a couple making unfortunate hard sweeping RH turns on that steep section with no additional sluff or fracture visible.  Minimal wind transport on that side.

I was up at divide yesterday (Sunday) to surf and rode the east divide shoulder , conditions were blower 

the storm came in hot ….1” per hr with a storm total yesterday when I took off at 12” in the basin 

any steep roll overs were sluffing naturally or when ridden over 

the storm slabs did not step down but we’re sliding on the new/old snow interface 

today I went back to divide and snowboarded and got up there early to beat the sun

it was hard to get a photo but pretty much the entire divide basin had slides on the storm snow what ran the entire length of the slopes…there were a few off divide pk proper 

each slide stared at the ridge from wind/ snow loading 

I took off at 1 today from the basin because everything was getting cooked and roller balls were starting and the snow quality was deteriorating 

From obs: "Southerly aspects had significant sluffing on the crust interface" Photo: M. Zia 

From obs: "Observed a D1.5 natural on the N side of Maid of the Mist, photo attached. Looked like the upper pocket slid, then triggered the lower slope. ~75m crown line on the lower slope, depth looked like between 20-40cm. Upper pocket, hard to tell with limited viz." Photo credit: M. Zia

Didn't get a good HN measurement, estimated ~25-30cm

S1 most of the day, our skin track was buried on the way out

Moderate winds, predominately westerly

Southerly aspects had significant sluffing on the crust interface

Storm snow <F, but subtly stiffening during the day

Observed a D1.5 natural on the N side of Maid of the Mist, photo attached. Looked like the upper pocket slid, then triggered the lower slope. ~75m crown line on the lower slope, depth looked like between 20-40cm. Upper pocket, hard to tell with limited viz

I toured to Divide today, with the intent of skiing the south face in glorious sunshine and powder. A pit at the base of the south face was a surprisingly shallow 125 cm. There was a thick 4-5 cm sun crust at 75-80 cm, and I got ECTP24 on a thin (~5 mm) layer of low-density facets overlying the crust. I’m kind of surprised it held up that well, considering I noticed snow moving out of that layer as I dug the pit. On the ski out, I noticed a loose, wet slide on an steep, sun-exposed aspect.