Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
- Collapsing
- isolated
Traveled to Southern Glacier Park this morning with a plan to do some kicking and gliding on a summer trail with an expectation of freezing temps, heavy winds, and poor visibility. I ended up discovering non-existent wind, relatively mild (10 degrees) temps, and decent viz. I was able to talk myself into doing a little climbing instead I encountered a veritable smorgasbord of snow conditions. Everything from snow on breakable crust, to breakable wind slab, to wind slab do sting and slippery I thought I had skied on a frozen log, to rock skiing, to icy chunder, to glorious soft powder. I topped out around 7800 ft encountering little to no wind. Within three minutes of descending, gale force winds and total whiteout conditions arrived, necessitating a hasty descent. On my descent, I did kick off some small wind slab slides of around 2-3 inches deep and at most 10 feet wide. The 1000ft or so of powder turns made the heinous unturnable breakable crust skiing worth it.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1 R1
- Type
- HS
- Aspect
- E
- Trigger
- AS
- Elevation
- 5700 ft
Triggered a small, shallow wind slab on a steep (maybe high 30s low 40s) rollover at around 5700 feet.