Camas - Central Bitterroot

Snow depths varied greatly from inches of snow at lower elevations to close to 7 ft at upper elevations. I found 6" of new snow on the ground at the trailhead (4200') and 1.5' at middle and upper elevations. I encountered no signs of instability on my tour up south and east aspects. However, I noted mutliple point release avalanches that had released along a southeast facing cliffband, cross loading on an east aspect, and obvious wind transport from the east wind event we recently had throughout the forecast region. I found a largely stable snowpack structure on a NE aspect around 8000' but have noted a new potential persistent slab problem in near crust facets found just below new/recent snow.

I observed multiple small point release avalanches along a cliff band on a southeast aspect. I suspect these avalanches released due to warming.

There was 6 inches of new snow on the ground at the Coyote Gulch trailhead (4200'). Up until around 5700', this new snow sat on primarily dirt or inches of snow. Above 5700', the depth increased from 3' to over 7' of snow with a little over 1' of new/recent snow sitting on a very hard crust.

I dug a snowpit at 8000' on a northeast aspect. The depth of this pit was nearly 7' (214 cm). I found soft and unconsolidated new/recent snow sitting on two thin knife hard ice layers (lenses). I found near crust faceting above the first ice lense and between the two lenses. Below this was on finger (1F) to pencil (P) hard snow consisting of facets and rounding facets to the ground. I did not get any results in an extended column test (ECTX) however noted that the entire slab of new/recent snow popped off the ECT block at the near crust facets above the first lense.

I noted at the end of the day that the surface snow on south aspects had gotten quite warm and sticky while north and east aspects remained cool and dry.