20-21

From obs: "This morning I was ascending Flanders Peak via the southeast trees. At approximately 1:30PM, on our second lap of the south-southeast bowl of Flanders Peak, I was skinning behind my friend who was putting in a new ascent track when we both heard a large "whump" and a 15 foot crack shot out from under his skis. I also witnessed him drop several inches from the large collapse in the snow. We were on a very low angle slope (less than 25 degrees) at approximately 9700 feet, in wide open trees right at the edge of tree-line and the alpine. We noticed no other signs of instability in the bowl we skied, or on the wind-loaded ridge."

Toured up Bacon Rind today. As expected we experienced dozens of massive collapses, shooting cracks, etc and were able to crack test slopes easily. Pretty fun really. Above 8k the slab became more supportable and collapses became less frequent, but traveled further. Needless to say we avoided all terrain over 30 degrees. It was snowing hard (S5) with moderate South winds when we left to drive home (1700), but it was clear by the time we got to Specimen Creek.

Observation 1:

Sun 1/3: Skied both north and east facing terrain on the west side of Hebgen today. The few inches of new snow that has fallen recently seemed a bit denser than what was already on the ground. Made for an EXTREMELY touchy day. Widespread whumpfing and collapsing everywhere we went. We kept our slope angles low. On one slope we had a large collapse when the first skier started which created many longitudinal cracks across the entire width and length of the slope. We measured the slope at 27 degrees - I am confident a steeper slope in this area would have easily released.

Observation 2:

Summary of observations from Sat 1/2 and Sun 1/3: -No avalanches observed -Lots of whumphing and shooting cracks on N through SE aspects between 6600' and 8900' -3" of new snow at 8900' within 24 hour period from Saturday to Sunday; snowed S1 for a few hours Sunday morning but stopped by 1 p.m. and skies went from obscured at 9:00 a.m. to broken at 3:00 p.m. -Imperceptibly calm winds on Sunday below ridgetop at 8900' and trees holding snow at all elevations; ridge at 8900' had light Westerly winds gusting at moderate; we observed blowing and drifting snow at ridgetop being deposited on NE through E slopes. Snowpit Data from E aspect at 8200' (26 degree slope) on Saturday 1/2 at 1:00 pm: HS 75cm Weakest layer found at 50 cm down; weak layer is the interface between F-hardness basal facets (2-3mm) and 4-F, smaller facets above them Test results on this layer were ECTPV, ECTP13, and PST 25/100 (end)

Found cracking/propagation on wind-loaded roll overs, 8-16’’+ fractures, while touring today. Was enough to keep us out of the gullies. North facing bench glades across from Scotch Bonnet, just below Lulu pass above the old buildings.