22-23

Our avalanche course toured up to the west ridge in Beehive Basin.

We dug four side by side hasty pits on an east aspect at 8740'.

HS 115 cm

HST approx. 8-9 cm

ECTX x 4

We were on the hunt for buried surface hoar. With no fractures in our ECT's to help locate the layer, it's hard to say whether the layer was or wasn't present, but we couldn't find it. Other than a MFcr down 30 cm with some associated near-crust facets, the snowpack was largely right side up with F to 4F above the crust and 1F to P below all the way to ground.  Basal facets comprised the bottom 20 cm and were 1F to pencil hard.  

The new snow was not particularly well bonded to the old snow surface.

The other half of our group dug on a westerly aspect at approximately 8500' off of the east ridge and found buried SH down approximately 30 cm. It was clearly visible in their pit walls. ECTN's on the SH layer in their pits. 

From obs: "Toured into Alex Lowe basin today and noticed lots of point release slides. Most started as spindrift in the cliff bands along the ridge and gained more snow as they fell into the aprons. Skied a north and south-facing couloir, ski cut at the top of both runs and got the new snow to sluff most of the way down. Didn't encounter any cohesive slabs, just lots of sluff sliding down." Photo: S. Lipsteuer

I skied south of Quake Lake today, and we took the time to dig a couple pits along the way. We dug our first one on a west aspect at 7250’, and picked a big meadow to see if we could find the buried surface hoar we found above Hebgen yesterday. I jumped off my skis like I was jumping into a lake, and sank straight to the bottom. Total snow depth was 110 cm, and the surface hoar was not nearly as obvious as it was in our pit above Hebgen. An extended column failed at ECTP12 on the surface hoar, which had much smaller crystals than what we found yesterday. Still, it is not very trustworthy. The pit also failed at ECTP21 on the interface with large facets 20 cm off the ground.

A second pit on a west aspect at 8600’ also failed at ECTP12 on buried surface hoar, but total snow depth was 125 cm and supported our weight well without skis. We observed numerous point releases that entrained enough snow to possibly knock a skier over, but none stepped down and fractured as a slab. 
 

Variable skiing at Lick Creek today. 2-3 inches of low density snow on the ground. Ski cutting on the north side wind roller produced very soft-soft slab results with little to no propagation directly under cornice. 4 inch soft slab on the interface. Ran about 20 feet with little entrainment.

It squalled out there around 12pm snowing S2 with little to no wind. That seemed to precede the squall in town by about 2 hours.

On a Jan. 16 tour into Beehive, we found the concerning layer of feathery surface hoar buried under 6" of snow. It is widespread from Big Sky through West Yellowstone and Cooke City. It has produced avalanches near Hebgen Lake, with more snow, it will likely produce avalanches in Beehive too. Photo: GNFAC