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Current Advisories

GALLATIN NATIONAL FOREST AVALANCHE ADVISORY

Archived Advisories
US Avalanche Danger Scale

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Check out our Season Summary for a brief recount of our accomplishments this year: http://www.mtavalanche.com/annual/SeasonSummary07-08.pdf

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SPRINGTIME AVALANCHE INFORMATION

The Avalanche Center is officially closed for the season and we won’t be issuing advisories again until next Fall. Many of you will keep skiing for weeks or possibly months to come. If you continue to get out, there are a few things worth keeping in mind with the snowpack.

DRY SNOW AVALANCHE CONDITIONS

If we continue to get cold, winter-like snowstorms you’ll want to dig down and see how this new snow is bonding to the old snow surface. In the Bridger, northern Gallatin and northern Madison Ranges there were no deep weak layers. However, since our closing, new, surface weak layers might have formed which could fracture with a new snow load.

The southern Gallatin and southern Madison Ranges, including the Lionhead area by West Yellowstone, the mountains outside of Cooke City and the Washburn Range, have some buried weaknesses you’ll want to track. At the beginning of April, three feet under the surface is a thin layer of surface hoar. On some slopes these crystals are even sitting on an ice crust. This layer has been persistent and is close to two months old. However, it’s still fracturing clean in our stability tests and could fracture if you were unlucky.

WET SNOW AVALANCHE CONDITIONS

Any day now winter will exit and true spring conditions will arrive. Sun, above freezing temperatures and wet snow avalanches are all on the horizon. The first warm, sunny day after a fresh snowfall could be very active with wet snow avalanches. Once we get ‘round the clock above freezing temperatures you’ll want to be extra cautious since chances of large, wet avalanches increase. Some years we get great “corn” cycles caused by freezing temperatures at night followed sunny, warm days. You’ll need to wake up pre-dawn to catch these great, magic carpet rides before the avalanche danger rises with the sun. Signs if increasing wet snow avalanche danger include sinking to your boot tops in slushy snow and pinwheels of wet snow rolling downhill.

If you want to know more about wet avalanches you can read a short article that I wrote in Outside Bozeman last year: http://www.mtavalanche.com/current/WetAvalanche.pdf

Even in spring, basic avalanche safety still applies: travel one at a time in avalanche terrain and carry the appropriate rescue gear.

Enjoy the spring!

Doug Chabot

Ron Johnson

Mark Staples