23-24

Skied in Hyalite around ~8000ft on E and NE aspects. Clear skies, calm winds, beautiful day.

HS ~40cm, composed entirely of basal facets and storm snow. Was easily able to put my poles to the ground basket side down.

Despite the unconsolidated snowpack, I had 25+ significant collapses while breaking trail, with shooting cracks up to 50ft long. The collapses created visible waves on the surface of the snow and shook small trees and weeds sticking through.

Alex Marienthal gets ready to do an ECT in a snowpit off Lionhead Ridge.

Doug Chabot walking off Lionhead Ridge to a snowpit site.

We rode to Ski Hill and dug 10-20 feet north of where it looked like an avalanche class had dug earlier this month. East aspect, 8,500'. Snow depth was 65-75 cm and we had an ECTP30 on the weakest, soft facets 20-30cm off the ground. Poor structure. We suspect this slope had been collapsed at least once from previous groups. Surface hoar was buried below the recent 6" of snow and was not reactive in tests, but pretty easy to see in the pit wall with large 1-2cm crystals above near surface facets.

We rode further up the ridge to "Marge" and dug on an east-northeast aspect. HS was 70-85cm and we had ECTP14 on weak depth hoar/facets 30cm off the ground. Also similar findings of non-reactive surface hoar below 6-7" of recent snow. Interestingly, we also easily found surface hoar in hand pits on more wind-loaded/exposed parts of the ridge and it seemed to break more easily here. This is noteworthy because wind-loaded slopes with buried surface hoar can be a deadly combination.

Calm and sunny today with some recent drifting of the new snow, but plenty of snow to be drifted into wind slabs still.

pit dug @0930 on E/SE slope. ECTN 14. Observed rollers balls as the morning progressed. put a few lines on the lower-angle meadows. 

We skied north of Bridger Bowl today near the ramp. We dug at the top of the refrigerator chutes with an HS of 66 cm where 4" of new snow was on top of the existing weak snowpack. Here we had ECTN22 and ECTN16 results at the interface between early December snow and weak-faceted snow near the ground. We continued up the ramp towards the ridge where the wind was forming drifts of snow that were cracking at our ski tips. At the ridge, we were able to trigger a small avalanche on a test slope. 
Below the ridge, we dug another snowpit in an area that was not wind-loaded. Here the HS was 72 cm and had 8" of new snow. The same poor structure was found here and we had an ECTP 20 result on the same interface of December snow on weak early-season snow. 

While recent snow wasn't enough to dramatically increase the danger on the slope we chose to travel on doesn't mean that is the case everywhere. The snowpack structure in the Bridger Range is poor and careful assessment should be done if choosing to enter steep terrain. Slopes that have or are being loaded by wind will likely have easy-to-trigger wind slabs. 
As we skied back to the ski area boundary the wind had begun to form drifts at the lower elevations that were easily triggered.