Quick report
- Cracking
- widespread
- Collapsing
- isolated
I found surprisingly sensitive hard slabs and extremely windy conditions during a tour through the headwaters of Bass, Sweeney, and One Horse creek. I heard a lot of collapsing above 7,000 feet on all aspects in hard wind drifts - at least 20 collapses throughout the day. In all cases, it appeared the snow was failing on facets on top of the early February crust, which was 6 - 18" deep. Winds were generally out of the Southwest, and it was a lot easier to avoid wind slabs on South aspects since much of the new snow had been stripped away. I intentionally triggered a steep NE facing bowl from a safe spot at the top of one of my runs in order to provide for a safe decent. The avalanche broke 6" - 24" deep, and was about 100' wide. The avalanche failed on the early February crust. Given the widespread nature of the problem, I had to pay very close attention to avoiding deep wind slabs in steep terrain and I heavily modified my route to avoid them. The day was about as windy as I have experienced in the Bitterroot, with strong sustained SW winds and powerful gusts all day transporting lots of snow. It seems like detecting these hard slabs will become more difficult next week as they are buried with new snow.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1.5
- Type
- HS
- Aspect
- NE
- Trigger
- AS
- Elevation
- 8800 ft
The observer intentionally triggered a steep NE facing bowl from a safe spot at the top of one of their runs in order to provide for a safe decent. The avalanche broke 6" - 24" deep, and was about 100' wide. The avalanche failed on the early February crust.