A skier on Mt Blackmore "observed some natural loose dry sluffs on the N face and the E face off the N ridge. They look like they came down in the last 24 hours with this new snow and wind; they were still fairly defined when I saw them." Photo: Jeanine Dalimata
Thin down low but powder up high. Today I skinned in and skied around the E side of the N ridges coming down off of Blackmore. The snow is about 2’ deep off of the ridge down to the bottom of the bowl on the east faces, with variations where the wind has loaded/stripped the snow. The wind was gusting out of the N/NW/W. Very powderific up there! The trail coming out is pretty exciting right now.
I did a tiny ECT in a pit I dug about 20’ down from the saddle that belongs to that little ridge that shoots off N of Blackmore proper summit. The saddle to the lookers right as you first gain the bowl on the trail coming in. The snow was about 2’ deep and I got a Q3 shear on ECT 26. There’s a rotten layer about 4” off the ground where the shear occurred. I observed some natural loose dry sluffs on the N face and the E face off the N ridge. They look like they came down in the last 24 hours with this new snow and wind; they were still fairly defined when I saw them. I think it’s pretty reasonable to expect these kinds of loose dry sluffs to persist with the incoming storm; areas where the snow has been loaded onto cliffy areas have been showing a lot of activity. Pretty much any nice looking, nicely angled snow loaded couilar or gulley on these aspects is likely to react even without a skier trigger based on my observations from this past week and what I saw today.
I just skiied up Irma into lower Republic Creek. The only tracks I saw were a griz, a moose and Beau’s. The snow is awesome! About 6-10” silky since I was up there a few days ago. I haven’t dug around yet, but it looks like 3 layers. 4-6” of ice/frozen slush at the bottom. Then a thicker dense pow from 2-3 weeks ago. And now some lighter stuff on top. About 16-18” total snowpack on the trail up from Irma a little ways. I’m aiming for the low angle meadows tomorrow.
From Doug Chabot:
Today I turned around on the approach to an ice climb on the north face of the Sphinx. Cracking in the windblown snow was a sign of things to come. At the first wind-loaded gully I crawled on my hands and knees over to the slope and whacked it with my ice axe. It avalanched. Although it was only 4" thick, it propagated 75 feet above and scraped the snow over a cliff. We opted to not tempt any more slopes and went home.
From an observation:
...we were out in Frazier Basin today and noticed some activity. While skinning up a south face we found a couple isolated wind pockets that propagated the top 2-3”... nothing slid. We did also found some couloirs that had storm slabs that had ran in the last few days, both south and north aspects.
From another observer:
Increasing wind speeds overnight and during the morning were easily transporting snow and building thin, stiff slabs. Slab formation was most intense along ridgelines but there were some thin, mid-slope slabs present on cross-loaded terrain features. Lots of loose issues, particularly as the sun was warming things up.
A panorama of the snow covered peaks in the northern Madison Range taken from Sphinx Mountain. Photo: GNFAC
The mountains are snowy in the northern Madison Range. This photo is of the south face of Lone Peak and the Yellowstone Club with Beehive Basin in the background. Photo: GNFAC
Winds were blowing at upper elevations (+9,000') and loading slopes that were cracking and avalanching. Photo: GNFAC
