Avalanche

Garden Wall

Cam Johnson
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Quick report

We partnered with USGS to visit the Garden Wall weather station above the Going to the Sun Road. Overall we found generally stable avalanche conditions with some isolated areas of concern.

  • There was kind of a smorgasbord of different types of recent avalanches. The most interesting was a slab avalanche triggered by a glide avalanche. We also observed a few small wet loose avalanches and another small slab avalanche. See avalanche tab for more information. 
  • Cool temps and intermittent cloud cover kept most of the wet loose avalanche activity at bay.
  • We found generally stable avalanche conditions underfoot and in snowpit tests. 
  • Dry snow transition to moist->wet below roughly 6000 feet.  

We found some excellent riding on north-facing terrain that was protected from the wind. 

Weather

Air Temp
Below Freezing
Cloud Cover
scattered
Wind Loading
previous
Rain Elevation
5600
Recent Snowfall
5
Snow Avail For Transport
small smounts

Below-freezing temperatures, partly cloudy skies, and a chilly breeze kept surfaces (and us) cool until our descent at around 2 pm.

Snowpack

We dug two holes at around 7400 feet. One on a south aspect and one on a northwest aspect. We got non-propagating tests in large column tests and stable results in propagation saw tests. See snow profiles for more information. 

Avalanche

Size
D3 R3
Type
HS
Count
4
Aspect
NE
Trigger
NS
Elevation
7650 ft

Different flavors of avalanche activity.