Quick report
Traveled to Stanton Mountain in Central GNP to continue cataloging recent avalanche activity and to enjoy a sunny afternoon in the park. Lots of large avalanches to add to the tally, but we came up empty handed with the Vitamin D intake. • Today's grand prize goes to the lookers right path on the southwest face of Stanton Mountain. . - The 2/23 AR cycle had the first round with this impressive avalanche path, but this weekend's warm weather proved that the path still had some fight left in it. . - Late in the day on 2/24, I observed an avalanche in this path with debris extending down to roughly 4000'. Today we observed the toe of the debris, which now terminates at ~3400'. Had this slide crawled another 250 feet in elevation, we would be looking at debris on the shoreline of Lake McDonald! . - I estimate that this second slide may have occurred 3/2 after a poor overnight refreeze and max temps reached 50ºF at the Flattop Snotel. • Today, we climbed up to 6400' before accepting that the forecasted sunshine was not going to materialize. • Before descending, we tucked into a NW facing slope to collect some snowpit data. We were curious to see how the structure on a shadey aspect might look after a long weekend of sunshine and warm temps. • The upper snowpack had consolidated considerably at this location, however the late January facets remain dry and there was no evidence of water percolation columns to be seen. • Multiple tests yielded unstable results. ECTP26, ECTP30, & PST 50/150 (End). All results 82cm down on the Jan 31 PWL. • Travel conditions are changing. . - GTTS road is roughly 2/3 snow & ice, 1/3 pavement. . - North Lake McDonald Road is mostly bare past the McDonald Ranger Station. . - The Trout Lake Trail is mostly snow free below ~3700'. . - Downhill skiing off trail is not recommended below about 5000'. . - Winter deadfall was manageable on trail. Several trees down, but nothing too obstructive. Numerous recent avalanches observed. Some likely from the 2/23 cycle. Others likely more recent from the 2/28-3/2 shed.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 21
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- light
- Recent Snowfall
- 2
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Overcast skies with a trace amount of new snow overnight. Light winds, moderate gust on ridge top. Thick and widespread cloud deck persisted at ~6800'-7000'. Temps remained cool with 21ºF measured at 1:00pm at 6400'. Temps were slightly above freezing on the valley floor by days end.
Snowpack
Dug one pit on a NW facing slope at ~6400'. Multiple stability tests yielded unstable results on the late January facets which appeared to have not been recently wetted on this shadey slope. •Snowpack structure and tests results can be viewed in the attached Snowpilot pit graph.
Avalanche
- Size
- D2.5
- Type
- WL
- Count
- 7
- Aspect
- W
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 7000 ft
Numerous recent avalanches observed. Multiple types judging by the start zones. Glides? Wet Slab? Wet Loose hybrid? On some slopes, it's hard to say which type with certainty, but what we know is that the weekends warm weather resulted in a lot of wet snow avalanches.