Quick report
We didn't dig today, opting for a ride through the motorized area to look at the extent of wet snow avalanches. First, the dry snow... there are bold tracks on many steep slopes with the most recent wind slab avalanches that we found occurring Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. While there are probably some isolated pockets of dry snow instability, things have calmed down significantly since earlier this weekend and wind slab avalanches are unlikely.
This leaves wet snow as the primary avalanche concern. While temperatures in town are well above freezing with water running down the highway in the afternoon, high-elevation and north-facing terrain is still only seeing limited affects with a light crust on top of cold, dry snow. We did see a number of small wet loose avalanches and rollerballs, and a larger wet loose avalanche was reported from the Zimmer Creek drainage yesterday, but at the current temperatures, things are not coming unglued. I would continue to watch for melting crusts and deteriorating stability in the heat of the day, but a basic early on, early off stategy is reasonable for sun exposed slopes.
Some R1/ D1-1.5 wet loose avalanches from rocky areas, including north-facing off of Crown ButteWeather
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Wind Loading
- none
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Avalanche
- Size
- D1 R1
- Type
- WL
- Count
- 2
- Aspect
- N
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 10000 ft
Interestingly, there was wet loose avalanche activity on the north-face of Crown Butte on a slope that usually remains cooler. Slides originated in rocky terrain that likely absorbed extra heat. Relatively small, more like a huge collection of rollerballs, but noteable.