Flathead Range & Glacier NP

Exercise normal caution today. The biggest hazard to you or your machine may be hitting stumps, rocks or trees.  Minimize your risk by traveling with a partner, exposing one person at a time in steep terrain, and doing so while carrying your rescue gear.

If you like mashed potatoes with Christmas dinner, yesterday was your day. Generally, weather stations across the board reported temperatures above freezing in the last 24 hours. The exception are weather stations above roughly 6,700 feet in elevation. Expect warm temperatures to continue today with a slight possibility of mixed rain and snow.

The lack of snow below 6500 feet makes travel into the alpine tough, especially as snow for machines or skis to slide on continues to disappear with warm temperatures. Despite the battles on lower elevation slopes, people have found relatively safe and enjoyable snow conditions above 6,500 ft.

Yesterday (Tuesday), I was in the Swan range and found small wind slabs at upper elevation ridgelines. These were thin (4-6 inches), isolated directly below the ridge, and did not propagate very wide. This is a great example of being aware and open to changing conditions. Read the terrain and plan your travel accordingly. While small and isolated, if a person were to kick one of these off in steep, consequential terrain, the outcome could be season-ending.

Increased temperatures yesterday and overnight may have caused wet loose avalanches in the middle elevation band (5000-6500 feet). Plenty of rollerballs will be on display if you venture out today. Low snow in this elevation band makes these mostly benign. However, being caught on a steep slope with plenty of surface roughness (i.e. stumps, rocks, and logs) could injure you, or damage your machine. 

You will also notice that we’ve dropped Persistent Slab as a problem. Poor structure and low danger can sometimes go together. This is a case in point. While the buried surface hoar beneath the 12/7 crust is showing up in snow pits, there haven’t been any signs of instability or reported avalanches associated with it in the last two weeks. There exists the possibility that a person may find this structure visiting slopes that face NW-N-NE above 7,000 feet. If the crust is thin and you’re getting unstable results in tests, that is a good indicator you may have encountered one of these areas. Before committing to a slope like this, consider the consequence of a 1 to 2 foot slab avalanche in the terrain you’ve chosen.