Flathead Range & Glacier NP

Riding conditions remain challenging, with various crusty surfaces at all elevations. Continue to practice safe backcountry travel techniques, including exposing only one person on a slope at a time and keeping an eye on your partner. Carry and know how to use your rescue gear.

Despite Saturday's good visibility, partly sunny skies, and the start of the MLK weekend, FAC received just one public observation. It is no secret that the riding quality has deteriorated dramatically over the past week. The cold, dry surface powder has transformed into crusts of all varieties - rain, sun, melt-freeze, and wind. Unfortunately, these crusts extend from the valley floor to the upper elevations and are found on all aspects. Shady slopes at upper elevation seem to harbor the least offensive crusts. Saturday's observation from the Flathead Range found a thin ice-skin crust on a north-facing aspect up to 7400'. This group made the best of the conditions and titled their tour "Not good snow, but not a bad tour."

I traveled to southern Glacier Park with the January FAC intern and a Glacier Park winter ranger. With the avalanche danger LOW at all elevations and the surface snow locked up, we dedicated the majority of the day digging to the bottom of the snowpack, looking for the December 3 crust/facet combination. Our friends at Avalanche Canada have noted many recent Persistent Slab avalanches just across the border, including two in Waterton National Park earlier this week. With this problem waking up in the neighborhood, FAC wants to stay abreast of this potential hazard. On upper elevation slopes, we did not find the crust/facet layer on sunny aspects where snow was lacking or melted off in early December. Shady aspects were different, and we located the problem layer about two meters below the surface. We believe these layers exist only on slopes that held snow in early December - upper elevation and shady. We currently do not have a Persistent Slab problem and may not develop one in the future, but it is worth being proactive regarding these layers.  

The current surface conditions allowed us to remove avalanche problems from our forecast Saturday. We encourage you to utilize Normal Caution - carrying and knowing how to use your rescue gear, riding with a competent partner who will keep you in sight, only exposing one person at a time, and giving large cornices a wide berth.

You can check out this week's weekly summary of weather, snowpack, and avalanche conditions in the Conditions Blog tab. There is a text written by the FAC intern and a video created by a forecaster.