Northern Madison

Looking at the crown from below. Photo: GNFAC

We skied into Blackmore late yesterday with chief concerns of the weak layer @ around 110cm and wind loaded new slopes. We dug two pits and found no failures in our column or ECTs. With the wind on the ridge we dug a hasty pit near the ridge to see how it was bonding. Again no results.

We decided to ski our lines taking care to avoid potential trigger zones and particularly loaded slopes. About half way down, I took a turn to the skier's left of a spine and the skier's right side had a small surface-level release. This would probably not have buried a skier, but likely would have taken them or a ride above the cliff band. 

On Sunday, February 6, Gallatin Country Sheriff Search and Rescue and the GNFAC responded to a avalanche in Lionhead. A snowmobiler was killed on a small steep slope when a shallow avalanche carried him into a terrain trap of trees. Photo: GNFAC

East facing slope at 8700 ft. ECTN23 on layer of facets or depth hoar 60cm from the top. 1.9m snowpack. Multiple layers of weak snow and crust deeper in the snowpack and 10cm of sugar at the ground. Top 60 cm was new snow and not cohesive.

Same location 7 days previous produced no result.

Southeast face of Beehive Peak, just below (and to the side) of the exit from 4th of July Couloir -

ECTN, noticed layers approx. 30 and 45 cm down, but couldn't get anything to propagate. 

pit depth approx. 200 cm deep (see buried probes)

felt good about the objective - climbed and skied 4th of July. Glad we did.

This morning while ascending a line on Sawtooth Mountain (Lower Novocain) we triggered an avalanche (ASu-SS-R2-D2-O)  that caught and carried my partner an estimated 180M and partially buried him. His leg and hand were unburied and excavation of the head was done in less than 2 minutes of the incident. The avalanche only involved new snow from the last 48hrs and was triggered on a MF crust/facet combo 30cm down(formed 1/30/22). The avalanche was 30cm at its deepest and 20-30M wide and ran 250M. We were lucky to find both skis and poles a little ways downslope.

GNFAC,

Went for a quick rip up Dudley Creek this afternoon. Seems to be a similar snowpack to other low elevation areas like Mt Ellis. We didn’t get above about 8200’, but on that south facing slope HS was ~50-70cm, generally weak snow felt with pole probes. It was more supportable for boot penetration than I expected. Ski pen was 5cm, boot pen was 15cm. 2” of new snow sat on a breakable sun crust, it skied better than I thought it would on the skin up.

Thanks for everything you guys do!

Spencer