Southern Whitefish Range

The snowpack is rather talkative these days. Our travel today remained consistent with observations from this past weekend.

We triggered dozens of shooting cracks and heard many audible collapses while traveling. These occurred on all of the aspects we traveled and above 6500 feet.
- One noteworthy observation was that we initiated a crack next to a wind-loaded ridgeline that propagated approximately 200 feet and into flat terrain on top of the ridge. This is a result of wind drifting snow into a hard slab. This was a clear sign to give start zones a wide berth.
Recent storm totals left a 4 to 8-inch soft slab in wind-sheltered terrain, and a 10 to 16-inch hard slab in wind-loaded terrain.
Slabs are sitting on top of a variety of persistent weak layers. The most impressive weak layer is the buried surface hoar which primarily existed in terrain sheltered from southwest winds.

We observed audible collapses and shooting cracks anywhere there seemed to be more than 8 inches of recent snow. The only locations where we didn't see or observe these signs were in wind-scoured terrain. We didn't observe these until we got above 6500 feet. This could also be due to the elevation where we got off the pre-existing skin track.

Southern Whitefish Range

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