Northern Whitefish - South Ridge of Lake Mountain

We headed up a ridge in the Northern Whitefish with great views of big south-facing terrain. We hoped to watch a wet avalanche show, but it didn't materialize for us. 

• Clear skies Tuesday night allowed for a solid refreeze above 6000', and even deposited some surface hoar on top of the crust in isolated sheltered locations.
• Steady moderate winds kept the warming at bay on exposed slopes.
• Despite our views into large and exposed mid- and upper-elevation, south-facing terrain, we didn't see a single wet loose avalanche in the terrain visible to us during our tour.
• Most of the activity we saw appeared to have happened the day prior, and was refrozen in the shade. 
  • Even so, this was limited to mostly roller balls and pinwheels, and was more prevalent  on shaded slopes than slopes facing the sun.
• Below about 6000', the surface was mushy and unsupportable, but still failed to yield much more than a roller ball or small pinwheel on steep slopes.
• We observed one very impressive crown from a slab avalanche that released naturally. It appeared to be at least a few days old, and we presume it ran on a persistent weak layer.
• Some dry loose activity on the northeast face of Link and north face of Red Benchmark.
• Where we dug, liquid water was confined to the upper portions of the snowpack, far above the still dry Christmas Crust/facets.
• Good views into the park on our way home suggested a bit more wet loose activity on high-elevation, very steep south and west-facing slopes, but still not very widespread.

 

Media to follow. Slab avalanche details to follow.

Very little in the way of active wet loose, really just a roller ball or two from today, with refrozen rollerballs from yesterday. Some recent dry loose observed. One large to very large avalanche slab avalanche appeared to be older (some time in the past week).

Surface Snow - <4500' decent refreeze in areas with clear view to sky, 4500-6000', wet and unsupportable, >6000', solid refreeze in areas with clear view to sky (ski supportable, often boot supportable crust at 14:00, even on slopes receiving some sunlight).

 

6470' - Southeast - ECTX

Wet snow in upper 5 cm, a bit of pooling water down 15 cm.  Dry snow below. 

Slab was fairly homogenous and 1F above the Christmas Crust. A bit of weak snow above and below Christmas Crust. 

 

6430' - North - ECTX, CT16 Q1 down 37 cm on 1/2 Interface

Breakable crust on surface, all dry snow below. 

1F above and below Christmas Crust - no weak snow found