Cooke City
Yesterday’s storm dropped seven inches of new snow totaling .5 inches of SWE in the mountains around Cooke City. Winds were strong during the storm blowing predominately out of the west-southwest. Skiers up Hayden Creek south of town observed active wind transport during much of the day yesterday.
Bridger Range Gallatin Range Madison Range
Lionhead area near West Yellowstone Cooke City
Bridger Range Gallatin Range Madison Range
Lionhead area near West Yellowstone
Once this wind slab released, it ran easily on top of a thin ice crust and entrained a lot of snow as it ran downhill about 700 feet vertical. Photo: GNFAC
Wind slabs on Wednesday (Jan 14) in Hyalite were very sensitive and easy to trigger. Mostly they were resting on low density new snow. This one was skier triggered and the cracked across most of the slope. It broke 5 inches deep. A crack can be seen in front of the skier near the top of the photo. This is a NE facing slope at 9500ft. Photo: GNFAC
Surface hoar seen near West Yellowstone on Jan 14, 2015. Photo: J. Watt
Bridger Range
A rider found these shallow soft slab avalanches in Taylor Fork on Sunday after a few inches of new snow fell. These were on a north-northeast aspect. Photo: J. Ziska
