Quick report
- Collapsing
- specific
We experienced 2 large collapses in frequently skied middle elevation terrain. Despite poor visibility, we saw several small slab avalanches in middle and lower elevation terrain near HWY75 from Galena Summit to just past Galena Lodge. Two large collapses: a football field-sized area on an E-SE aspect near 8800', and a half a football field-sized area on a S-SW aspect near 8550'.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 25-29 (car thermometer)
- Cloud Cover
- obscured
- Wind Loading
- none
- Recent Snowfall
- 30cm past 24 hrs?
- Snow Avail For Transport
- large amounts
Calm to light winds. Snowing S1-2 for the few hours we were out this afternoon. On the drive south at 1600 hrs, the Smokys were still obscured, the Boulders were becoming OVC, and there was some blue sky trying to poke through the clouds near Ketchum. Visibility was poor to challenging though, so we saw very little avalanche terrain.
Snowpack
No formal observations or snowpack tests - I was not working. There was 60-70cm of settled storm snow on shady aspects and slightly less on solar aspects. On E aspects, it was well graded with no obvious mid-storm instabilities. On more solar aspects, there were some denser layers interspersed in the lower half of the storm snow but no easy + clean shears in non-standard hand tests.
Avalanche
We did not see any recent avalanches while skiing, but visibility was poor and we were only near a couple avalanche paths. There were a couple 1.5-2 foot thick persistent slabs just above the highway under the Cross (SE 8500'), likely plow triggered; a crown of unknown size on Titus Ridge (E aspect near 9100'); and what appeared to be a persistent slab off a knob on the north side of Coyote Ck (NW aspect near 7400').