Northern Gallatin

Graph of Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) at SNOTEL sites in the GNFAC forecast area from October 1, 2021 to January 30, 2022. It highlights the extended dry conditions in January that contributed to weak layers forming at the top of the snowpack. GNFAC

We dug a snowpit about  50 ft below the summit of divide peak on a S facing slope.  Snow depth at the pit was 136cm. We had an ECTP 27 on some weak snow 58cm deep. It wasn't a very energetic fracture,  but it still went across the whole column.  

Skinned up into Maid of the Mist Basin and dropped over the ridgeline into the Basin below Mount Bole to ski a couloir to the north. We found widespread windslab on all aspects, nothing was reactive, but it was enough to make the skiing bad and unpredictable - one turn would be great, the next you'd be in breakable crust. 

We dug 2 snowpits, both on SE-facing slopes at about 9600ft. Dug down ~100cm in each pit looking for near-surface instabilities. Had no unstable test results, but found a lot of weak faceted snow in both pits. Lots of people out skiing didn't observe any avalanches or signs of instability. 

I walked down into the north notch(north facing shot part way up divide ridge) to see if it was safe to ride and dug a snow pit

it is very difficult to dig a pit on this slope with out exposing yourself 

there was a 6” wind slab sitting on top of near surface facets which failed in stability tests so I did not ride this slope/run

Also further along the ridge east of divide pk a small chunk of a cornice fell onto the slope fractured/ released a small wind slab roughly 6” deep…..nothing big at all but it seems that near surface facets where the bed surface of this one also

Yesterday while belaying at the base of Twin Falls, right side, a small slab of snow to the right of the climb destabilized and fall onto me. I managed to stay standing and totally ok, but the rope coils and a water bottle were pulled down hill. It could have pulled me down, causing me to pull off my belayer. I think a piece of ice fell from the climb and triggered the slab as I heard a noise, though it could've just been the snow spontaneously cracking. 

No signs of instability on Ellis.  Approximately 4 inches of new snow from the last storm.  Skiing was good.  It is amazing how thin the snow pack remains.  A quick pit north of the burn and approximately 300 vertical feet short of the summit was 70 cm deep with no obvious layers.  There was moderate wind out of the west on the summit.

Toured up early hoping to ski fat maid, not much wind effect on the approach, dug a pit just below the base of the line on a N aspect. Found a pretty stable snowpack, didn’t do a full profile, we were mostly looking for any red flags to turn us around. Got a ct14 that didn’t propagate and just fell apart, and ectx, so we decided to continue up. It seemed like the new snow was our main concern. On our way up, found more loaded snow in the apron of fat maid, got a few shooting cracks about 10-15 feet and decided to turn around. Above the apron, we could see old ski tracks and it looked very textured, but we didn’t feel comfortable heading up the apron because of how loaded it looked.