23-24
Skiers unintentionally triggered this cornice above the south face of the Sphinx. No one was caught. Photo: Anonymous
Natural Wet Snow Avalanches Crazy Mtns.
Riders saw several natural wet snow avalanches while riding on the west side of the Crazy Mountains. The largest of these was 500' wide, D2. All these avalanches happened in the upper 40cm of the snowpack.
Riders in the Crazy Mountains saw several small wet loose avalanches during their travels today. Many of them were on south-facing terrain. Photo: Anonymous
Rides saw this large avalanche in the Crazy Mountains on an east-facing slope. This avalanche broke 500 ft wide and 40 cm deep. Photo: Anonymous
good stability on N aspects at 9000 ft in N. Gallatins
We skied two North-facing lines in the Northern Gallatin range on Wednesday ranging in elevation from 8500 - 9700 ft with some slight West and East flavor. We saw no signs of instability and set off a couple large sluffs in the top 8-12" of snow and some wind-loaded pockets breaking 6-8" deep. I dug a pit and did a CT and ECT and got CT15 on new snow 30cm deep and CT28 on a layer 45 cm deep. Got ECTN16 on same 30-35 cm deep new snow layer. The interface with the old freeze-thaw layer below the new snow did not show a very high quality fracture plane / bed surface for the upper new snow to slide on. the freeze-thaw layer was about 1-2cm thick but did not feel it while skiing. Upon pulling on ECT column with shovel, broke on 45-cm layer with poor quality and also on basal facet layer at ground. Overall right-side-up snowpack density going from fist to pencil hardness pretty linearly. Total depth of snow 210cm. Depth of new snow from last storm approx. 12-16". 9600 ft NNE aspect.
Cornice Collapse on the Sphinx
Unintentionally triggered a large cornice collapse on the south face of the Sphinx. I should have expected it, but it was certainly touchier than I was anticipating. Intermittent wind gusts kept upper elevations cooler and we found somewhat cold snow up high. At treeline and below it was hot and crusty! Photos show cornice before and after.
Crazy mtns
Rode up cottonwood creek on the west side of the crazies. Saw several recent wet loose slides on southern aspects as well as some isolated slides on north/west aspects. Only saw one larger slide that had a wide crown(500ft) D2 on an east aspect. All slides were breaking in the upper 40cm in new/old snow.
Dug a pit north east aspect HS270cm ECTN24 @40cm down from surface. Melt freeze down 70cm might start reacting when water penetrates through upper snow pack, dry snow in upper 60cm but becoming more moist on solars.
Good test scores on Henderson
Dug a pit on our way up the west side of Henderson Mountain. Incline 26 degrees, elevation 9545. Surface depth at 165cm, dug down to about 65cm. Performed extended column test and yielded ECTN17 along melt freeze crust at 135cm above ground.
Wet Loose Avalanches in Argentina Bowl
Driving home from Bridger Bowl I spotted a number of wet loose avalanches in Argentina bowl. It was 1:30 PM when I saw them and the sun was still blazing. I would expect there was more activity as the afternoon progressed.