Quick report
- Cracking
- specific
We traveled to the southern Whitefish Range to take a closer look at an avalanche remotely triggered by a skier on January 9.
- This was a large avalanche (D2) on a popular backcountry run northeast of the ski area.
- The avalanche was similar to the skier-triggered slide that occurred on January 7 east of the ski area. Both failed about 2 feet below the surface on buried weak snow capping the Christmas crust. See the avalanche tab for more details.
- A second avalanche was noted on a southwest aspect, triggered by a snowmobile. This was a smaller slide but also failed on buried weak snow capping the Christmas crust. See the avalanche tab for more details.
- We also noted one large open southerly slope that had glide cracks forming at about 6000'.
- The snow quality was superb in locations sheltered from the wind.
Two triggered avalanches were noted. Thin wind slabs cracked underfoot.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 20
- Cloud Cover
- scattered
- Wind Loading
- none
- Rain Elevation
- 1000'
- Recent Snowfall
- 5
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
Overcast conditions in the morning with the base of the cloud deck around 6000'. Clearing through the afternoon, ending with mostly sunny skies at sunset.
Snowpack
We dug a snowpit on a 6750' E-NE aspect. HS 240. ECTP22 down 44 cm on 4-6 mm graupel/rimed precip particles over the Christmas interface.
Crown profile - ECTX. Additional profile above the crown and crack, also ECTX. Failure layer was 0.3-0.5 faceted crystals on pencil hard 2cm thick Christmas crust.
Crown Snow - Mostly right-side up F/4F top 20 cm, then 1 finger next 20 cm, then pencil hard for the 20cm resting on facets above the Christmas crust.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1.5 R1
- Type
- SS
- Aspect
- SW
- Trigger
- AM
- Elevation
- 5450 ft
We noted one slab avalanche triggered by a snowmobiler near the base of one of the Skook Chutes, just above the upper road. This slide failed on the Christmas Crust. It appears to have been triggered today.