Moose Creek

Our goal today was to assess conditions ahead of the incoming storm in the southern Bitterroot. We focused on south and east aspects where uncertainty exists on distribution and sensitivity of persistent slab problems around buried crusts.

We found generally stable conditions. There are two melt-freeze crusts in the top third of the snowpack, but we did not find noteworthy faceting around the crusts. There are still some lingering facets near the ground, but they are stubborn, and deep avalanches on them are unlikely.

At the surface, there is 2-3 inches of very low density snow on top of another 3-4 inches of decomposing new snow. Moving this snow around in the future will not take much wind, but we did not see evidence of any recent wind transport today.

Overall, instability tomorrow will be isolated to new snow, with larger persistent slab avalanches unlikely.

No signs of instability observed