Quick report
Beauty of a day up high in the Bitterroots. Today I wanted to check in on the trail, the snowpack, my fitness, and to take advantage of the clear weather to glass around the northern part of the range. In classic Broot fashion, there was only an inch or two of snow up to near the summer TH -where I put on and took off my skis- and 220cm of snow in snowpit I dug at ~8200', on an East facing slope in the trees, not wind affected. My snowpit revealed a right side up, coherent snowpack, with 30 cm of lighter density new snow sitting on 190cm of denser snow; HS 220cm. I didn't get any results from my CT test. I also mdidn't get any propogation in the ECT; ECTN 20, down 30 cm on the new/old interface. I was able to get the top 30cm to pop off with shovel shear, cleanly on that new/old interface. It seems like the pack is off to a good start above 7,000'. I did still keep my travels cautious, descending my up track down the SE ridge from the summit. Winds were calm all day and I relished the views on the summit, taking my time to zoom in down S, SW, W, NW, and North from LJ. I was able to spot a couple of crowns from both older and newer avalanches, as well as some cornice failures. There was also some impressive wind texturing of slopes back near the divide. See photos attached.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1.5
- Type
- HS
- Count
- 4
- Aspect
- E
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 9125 ft