Quick report
Excellent skiing in the Flathead Range this weekend. 48-hour snow totals amounted to about 2" on the canyon floor and 10" inches at our high point of 6400'. No signs of instability in the recent snow, however the Persistent Slab structure lurks... We favored windward/solar slopes less than 35 degrees. Large hard slab avalanches observed on the Flathead Crest. No signs of instability in the recent snowfall.
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- scattered
- Wind Loading
- none
- Recent Snowfall
- 25
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
• Saturday offered mostly cloudy skies with light to moderate SW winds, and stormy (S5) at times. • Sunday began with a moment of heavy snowfall in the early morning, but quickly turned to scattered clouds and calm winds with very little precipitation. The sunshine broke through around 2:00pm. The snow surface remained dry and fluffy during our departure at 2:30pm, however I suspect it may have done some damage by early evening. It remained partly sunny during my drive back to the valley.
Snowpack
Persistent Slab structure evident at all elevations (see attached profiles). The Leap day rain event left behind a crust up to about 5800'. The crust was breakable on Saturday and mostly supportable today.
Avalanche
- Size
- D2 R1
- Type
- HS
- Count
- 2
- Aspect
- N
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 7400 ft
Two large hard slab avalanches observed on the Flathead Crest. Both estimated to have run on 2/28-2/29 during the Leap Day Cycle.