21-22

<p>Today, there is not much wind and not much new snow. You may find isolated wind slabs near the ridgelines that could be triggered, but these would be few and far between. Yesterday skiers backed out of avalanche terrain in Hyalite and south of Cooke City when they got wind drifts to crack. Today these drifts will be less likely to fracture.&nbsp;</p>

<p>A couple days ago a thin and wide avalanche broke free on Saddle Peak. Alex took a <a href="http://www.mtavalanche.com/images/22/shallow-wide-avalanche-saddle"><st…; yesterday and its width caught our attention. Slides that propagate far typically have a weak layer underlying the slab and we are hypothesizing that a razor-thin layer of facets might have been responsible. We will check it out today. The odds of getting caught in a slide like this can be lessened with a quick stability test of the new/old snow interface. <em>Throughout the forecast area our avalanche concerns are limited to the upper foot of the snowpack.</em> In the Bridger, northern Gallatin and northern Madison Ranges this interface is where instability will show itself. In the southern Madison and southern Gallatin Ranges, Lionhead and Cooke City, in addition to this interface there’s a weak layer of surface hoar buried about 8” deep. We mitigate both concerns the same way, by digging and testing instead of blindly throwing ourselves into avalanche terrain.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Avalanches are unlikely throughout our forecast area today and the danger is rated LOW on all slopes. As always, retreat if you find instability (cracking, poor test scores), and when you find good slopes to slide and ride on only expose one person at a time.&nbsp;</p>

<p>If you get out, please send us your observations no matter how brief. You can submit them via our <a href="https://www.mtavalanche.com/node/add/snow_observation"><strong><u>websi…;, email (<a href="mailto:mtavalanche@gmail.com"><strong><u>mtavalanche@gmail.com</u></str…;), phone (406-587-6984), or Instagram (#gnfacobs).</p>