Bollettino valanghe

Selkirk Mountains

Idaho Panhandle Avalanche Center
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Pericolo valanghe

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Limite del bosco
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Non aggiornato — questo bollettino è scaduto 5 years ago. Stai vedendo condizioni passate, non il bollettino in corso.

In sintesi

Even though winter has taken a while to show up, there’s plenty of snow to find avalanche conditions. Snowtel data shows that the snowpack in our zone doubled in the last 7 days and the weather forecast looks like more snow soon. With that said, I’d recommend checking and testing the new snow before heading into potential avalanche areas. The old snow was firm in many places so could be a good slide surface for new snow.  

Problemi valanghivi

  • Storm Slabs

    • Alta quota
    • Limite del bosco
    • Sotto il limite del bosco
    Probabilità
    Possible
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    1

    The new snow from the past week has amounted to enough that storm slabs are forming in isolated areas. The prevailing winds have been out of the southwest, so the most likely place to find stiffer and thicker slabs would be on NE-N-NW slopes.  The colder weather has made te snow light and easy for mother nature to transport.   In the local mountains, weather stations are showing between  4''-24'' over the past 7 days . 

  • Wind Slabs

    • Alta quota
    • Limite del bosco
    • Sotto il limite del bosco
    Probabilità
    Possible
    Dimensione
    1

    Strong winds have loaded NE-N-NW strarting zones with a stiff slabs. Most of these slabs are now buried under new snow.  It's a fair question to ask if the new snow will bond well to the old snow? So far I haven't seen any signs of instability related to the old and new snow but we'll have to keep looking at it, as it keeps snowing. I'd anticipate greater avalanche likelyhood as more more snow arrives.

Avalanche Discussion

Yesterday we traveled via snowmobile up to Roman Nose Lake in the Selkirk’s. There was about 10’’ of settled snow, which, as it turns out is enough snow for the sleds. Quickly it became snowier as we ascended. The snow was 32’’ deep at the outlet of the lake (5900’). We weren’t brave enough to take the sleds across the lake, so we switched to skis. We skinned up to the ridge west of the lower lake. The snow is still thin. It was a challenge trying to avoid rocks, alder, creeks, brush, stumps, etc…

For the most part the snowpack can be looked at as two parts right now. The old snow from November early December, which makes up the bottom half of the snowpack. The second part is the new snow from the last 2 weeks, which makes up the top half of the snowpack. From what I’ve seen, the new snow is adhering to the old snow well. Even though we didn’t see an signs of instability or signs of avalanches, we still did approach terrain carefully. I think the old/new snow interface could look different at different, elevations, and aspects.  

I’m encouraged by the weather forecast. As we get more snow and bury ground vegetation, the connectivity to other slopes will increase. This means that slopes one week maybe not be able to produce an avalanche but as the snow depth increases so does that’s slopes ability to avalanche. Remember: If it’s deep enough to ride, it’s deep enough to slide!

 

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