Flathead Range & Glacier NP

You can enjoy generally safe conditions today. Travel with a partner and carry avalanche rescue equipment – including a transceiver, shovel, and probe – if your route includes steep terrain. Exercise caution on slopes with thinly covered rocks and trees, as these hazards can make travel difficult and falls painful.

You’ve got another day to enjoy the luxury of simple avalanche conditions. Today, you could find wet, wind-sculpted, or loose, dry snow. However, these will qualify more as conditions than hazards and won’t necessarily dictate your travel. Here’s some context:

·        Solar aspects have received abundant sun and are capped with a melt-freeze crust.

·        This crust, along with southwest winds and some possible high cloud cover, will limit wet loose activity

·        Crusty windward slopes will limit available snow for new wind slab formation. Previously formed wind slabs have trended to unreactive.

·        Faceted snow on shaded slopes has begun to produce some minor sluffing.

Something that WILL dictate my travel is a glide crack. We’ve received more reports of glide cracks opening and/or avalanching in our advisory area. The failure mechanism for these slides is poorly understood, making them extremely difficult to predict. They also consist of the full depth of the snowpack, resulting in larger, more destructive avalanches. The best approach is to steer clear.  Plan your route to avoid traveling on or under slopes where these cracks are present. Learn more about glide avalanches here.

Did you hear about the app? You can now access our region's forecasts, observations, and weather data directly from the Avy App (IOS; Android). Many features are accessible offline, so you can win debates about the avalanche problems right in the backcountry or submit an obs while driving home. 

Registration is open for this season's avalanche courses. Get some learning done!  There's an Avalanche Awareness class on Wednesday, December 11th, at 6:00 pm at the Stonefly Lounge in Coram.