Quick report
Skied the roadside burns to the east of Steamboat Mtn in the northern Tetons after getting skunked on Jackson Lake. Our plan was sticking to very low angle terrain after seeing numerous large natural avalanches on basically any slope >35 during our tour de lake. We felt two collapses and whoompfing on the way up. We dug two pits out of curiosity at 7600 W facing. Mostly a kingdom of facets at the ground. One pit had propagation ETCP12 on presumably the 1/26 layer - a facet crust facet sandwich. After skiing we noticed an avalanche had released on a steeper convex rollover - presumably a remote trigger from us. D1.5 R3. Triggered from 200+ feet away. Only ran 50-100 vertical feet. 2ft+ crown. Numerous large natural avalanches (D2) observed on E and NE aspects of pt 8152 and 8602. Perhaps ran sometime during or at the tail end of the storm — new snow on top of bed surface had blown in. Also, there’s an open moat at the far west side of Jackson Lake under these peaks. Don’t ask how we know. Overall, snowpack in lower elevations seemed VERY touchy. Anything steep enough wanted to slide, and collapses were spreading large distances. Very cautious route finding and terrain management seemed mandatory in the northern Tetons today.