22-23

Small deep avalanche in Cabin Creek. Likely broke 1/1/23. GNFAC photo.

Small deep natural avalanche in Cabin Creek. Likely broke 1/1/23. GNFAC photo.

We rode into Teepee Basin first. We had perfect visibility and saw no avalanches. We dug on the far north ridge on a south facing slope: HS 105, ECTN25 on facets about 40 cm off the ground. There is a lack of recent ava activity and ECTN score, which point towards a snowpack trending towards stability, but the snowpack structure is still suspect: facets underlying a slab.  

Next we rode to a small and recent avalanche in Cabin Creek. We were alerted to it last night. Although it was steep and wind-loaded, it illustrated the lurking problem we are finding in most areas. Faceted snow is not entirely trusted. We did not see evidence of avalanches on Skyline ridge and folks are starting to climb.

Extended column test at lat/long 45.84006, -110.93326, elevation 7698 feet, east facing, approximately 20 degree slope.  Depth of snow = 95 cm.  There were 2 obvious interfaces: 1) approximately 20 cm below the surface (ice crust) and 2) approximately 20 cm above gound, the heigth of the faceted snow.  ECTP18, shear quality q1.  The snow is noticeably dense/stiff.  We stayed on lower angle slopes, the skiing was good.