Quick report
- Cracking
- specific
- Collapsing
- widespread
Tour in the Southern Whitefish range confirmed a few of our concerns going into the day. Across W-SE aspects, new snow sat on varied crust layers. Test slope and uphill feedback included breakable crusts, sluffing, audible collapses, and shooting cracks on a wind affected ridge. Winds were low at mid-elevation but increased significantly above the trees. Estimated 10-20mph W/SW was enough to transport available snow to N/NE aspects based on the varying lack of it during ridge travel. Sheltered trees provided the best skiing experience, while open S facing terrain held a sun(?) crust layer with roughly 20cm poorly bonded snow that collapsed under the weight of a skier. A steeper slope would likely have shown us less mercy
Avalanche
- Size
- D2
- Type
- HS
- Aspect
- W
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 6200 ft
W Face 6,200' Likely occurred since February snowfall began Roughly 80' wide at crown, 2' deep, ran ~300' No signs of tracks or human trigger