Siyeh Pass - GNP

Quick report

Our team of 3 headed out to Saint Mary with loose plans and hopes to see what was going on with the snow on the east side. With a winter permit from GNP we camped at Rising Sun auto campground from late Fri-Sun, giving us relatively quick access to the eastern start of the Siyeh Pass trail. The siren song of slumber kept us cozy in our tents longer than one plans, so we got a late start to the morning. The trail was bare for roughly 1.15 miles before hitting consistent snow. Lots of blowdown and wind gusts that would knock us over made travel with heavy packs quite an adventure. We got some good looks of the top of Siyeh Pass, hopefully the snow stays for a while! We kept conservative with the time we had, and opted for a short and sweet 600 ft line through bare trees. We were able to skin out from the valley floor back to the bare trail. One spicy occurrence we didn’t expect to encounter came from exposure to a breaking frozen waterfall. The powerful wind gusts (estimated 50-60mph) broke a roughly 5 foot crown off a waterfall straight overhead of us. With some nimble feet we were all able to dodge the flying pieces of ice. Whew! 3/29 The east side of the GTTS road is clear until roughly .3 miles from the Gunsight Pass trailhead. We were greeted early in the morning by a healthy looking grizzly that was roaming the Rising Sun campground. Made for one exciting poop!

Avalanche

Size

D2

Count

2

Aspect

E

Trigger

N

Elevation

9642 ft

3/28 Observed signs of recent activity during the hike to Siyeh Pass. One coming off of GTTS mtn seemed to have been from a large cornice overhead, while Matahpi Peak showed some smaller slides lower down - underneath Sexton Glacier. We travelled further on 3/29 and scoped out how Jackson Glacier was looking. We spotted a large crown that had broken from a cornice above.