Whitefish Range

Today we went to an exposed southerly ridgeline in the Whitefish Range to suss out new snow instabilities and check in on old persistent weak layers. 

• Depending on the elevation, we found anywhere between 4 to 10 inches of recent snow. The surface snow on southerly aspects became wet quickly during short periods of solar radiation.
• We observed 5 D1 Wet Loose slides on south and southeast aspects. One recent natural avalanche failed as a slab. More info in the avalanche tab.
• Despite the chaos north and east winds can produce, this ridgeline came away unscathed from the recent wind event. We found very few signs of recent drifting. 
• We dug a snowpit on a north aspect at 7000 feet. At this location, the 3/21 crust (the most recent warmup) is thin and fragile. This thin crust does not add much strength to the snowpack, unlike the robust crust on southerly aspects. 
  • We found the early February crust/facet layer down 130 cm. The facets above the crust were noticeably weaker than the snow above and below. In this location, the structure is poor.

I was hoping to find something more inspiring than what was found on north aspects.  Regardless, we were able to squeeze out some good turns on a south aspect for our descent. I would anticipate a thin sun crust moving forward.