Quick report
- Cracking
- widespread
- Collapsing
- widespread
Today we went for a ridgewalk in the Flathead Range to escape the chaos of the windy valley.
- Only a couple of inches of snow on top of a wet snowpack at low elevations. Snow heights increased rapidly with elevation. Roughly a meter (3 feet) of new and recent snow.
- We experienced many audible collapses at middle elevations (5000-6500). One of the collapses shook snow off of trees 30 feet away.
- We kicked and stomped small test slopes and were able to easily trigger small slides in new snow.
- Minimal wind-drifting at middle elevations. There is a lot of snow available to transport.
- We observed roughly 5 large avalanches at middle elevations. All but one of the crowns were mid-slope and crowns wrapped around terrain features. The bed surface had a sheen to it that looked crust-like. I anticipate these all failed on one of the faceted crusts (Christmas or Mid January).
Trail breaking was arduous. Snow is slow. We stuck to ridgelines.
Loud audible collapses between 5000 and 6500 feet. We experienced 6 throughout the day.Weather
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- light
- Recent Snowfall
- 3 feet
- Snow Avail For Transport
- large amounts
Dropping temps throughout the day. Sun was trying to poke through but never did.
Snowpack
New snow/recent snow=1 meter. Mid-Jan crust down 130 cm. Christmas crust down 150cm.
Avalanche
- Size
- D2 R3
- Type
- HS
- Count
- 2
- Aspect
- NE
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 6000 ft
Natural avalanche activity observed was all at middle elevations. Upper-elevation terrain was obscured by clouds for most of the day.