GNFAC Avalanche Forecast for Wed Jan 5, 2011
Snowpack and Avalanche Discussion
The northern Madison Range:
10-11
This wind slab avalanche was triggered by a dog south of Bozeman. "Luckily he has good reflexes and was able to jump out of the slab as it started to move because he wasn't wearing his dogalung at the time." While this snowpack in this photo is different from the one in the mountains, this avalanche is a good indication of the sensitivity of recently formed wind slabs. Photo: C. Kautz
Forecast link: GNFAC Avalanche Forecast for Thu Jan 6, 2011
GNFAC Avalanche Advisory for Tue Jan 4, 2011
Snowpack and Avalanche Discussion
The northern Madison Range:
This is a close-up picture of the avalanche on Cedar Mountain. Photo: Yellowstone Club Ski Patrol
Forecast link: GNFAC Avalanche Advisory for Tue Jan 4, 2011
This avalanche likely broke on the buried surface hoar layer. It was in a pocket that gets side loaded. We are still concerned with the stability in the northern Madison Range. Photo: Yellowstone Club Ski Patrol
Forecast link: GNFAC Avalanche Advisory for Tue Jan 4, 2011
This avalanche was triggered by a snowmobiler on Friday, December 31. The slope was wind loaded. It was the only recent avalanche in this area. Wind-loading is our biggest concern, and slides will likely be confined to these slabs. Photo: GNFAC
Forecast link: GNFAC Avalanche Advisory for Tue Jan 4, 2011
This snowpit was dug in an area that produced clean, propagating shears December 21. Now things are looking much better. There are no layers in this snowpack that concern me. The only stability issues are on slopes with a recent wind-load. Check out the next photo "lulu pass wind slab" to see what we mean. Photo: GNFAC
GNFAC Avalanche Advisory for Mon Jan 3, 2011
Snowpack and Avalanche Discussion
The northern Madison Range:
The skiing and riding conditions in the mountains around Big Sky have been improving on a daily basis. Unfortunately this does not mean that stability has been improving at the same rate. Buried surface hoar 18-24" deep continues to produce obvious signs of instability such as cracking, collapsing, and recent avalanche activity.
This buried layer of surface hoar was a stability concern 10 days ago. It easily fractured then, but today (2Jan) it would not propagate in my tests. The SH likely collapsed during the recent storm which stabilized it. I found this stability in all 3 of my snowpits. Additionally I got no collapsing or cracking as I toured around. Photo: GNFAC
Forecast link: GNFAC Avalanche Advisory for Mon Jan 3, 2011