22-23

Darren Johnson was a passionate skier, patroller, and wildland firefighter and this fund helps his memory live on. During the week of January 16, 2023, there are two events happening to help spread awareness about the DJ Fund and generate donations for the next recipients to attend National Avalanche School in October 2024. The first event is at the Independent Theatre on Tuesday, January 17.

We rode in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Yellowmules into the head of Muddy Creek today. At the 1st Yellowmule we found punchy, weak snow in several places. This is a sign that the snowpack is continuing to facet near the ground. The snow seemed more faceted than it was the last time we were in Buck. We saw a new layer of surface hoar on the snow surface all over Buck Ridge, which could be a problem in the future. We also found a layer of buried surface hoar 8-12” below the surface throughout Buck. 

We dug at the head of Muddy Creek, and we found 160 cm (~5 feet) of snow on a north aspect. We got an ECTP8 on a surface hoar layer 10” below the snow surface. Where we dug was near a ridgeline, and the surface hoar was intact despite this area getting wind. When deciding to get into steeper terrain riders and skiers should assess for instability with an ECT at this layer, and they should still be wary of the weak, sugary snow at the bottom of the snowpack.

Started a small wind slab avalanche on an isolated rollover about 2/3 of the way down the face of elephant mountain yesterday (Thursday January 12th). Broke a few inches deep, about 8 feet wide, and ran less then 100 ft. 

We exited Bridger Bowl via the ridge and dug a pit at the top of Lazy Susan near The Ramp. It was 111 cm deep and full of facets. The lower half was facets, and the top was faceting, and there was surface hoar. We had ECTN17 and 18 at 79cm. Felt weak, but generally stable. You could trigger an avalanche somewhere, but danger is decreasing without new snow and wind-loading.

We dug a pit on a protected ne facing slope at around 8750', got ECTP5 ~25cm down on what I thought was NSF, but may be the surface hoar layer reported on GNFAC page. We also got an ECTP21 on facets near the ground and stuck with our plan of skiing low angle terrain. On a few small steeper rollers/micro terrain/logs we released 4 small avalanches on the layer closer to the surface. The biggest slide we triggered was maybe 10-15ft wide and 1ft deep, and we continued to avoid any larger connected terrain where a bigger slide could be possible. We didn't see any activity on basal layers while out, and at Cabin Creek 2 days prior we did not find these layers of concern in our pit or while skiing or snowmobiling, but the S facing slope we were on mostly were more exposed the wind, weather and moderate snowmobile tracks.