Saw this avalanche today off miller ridge. Looks to be natural, soft slab
I skied above hebgen today, and was surprisingly the only one out there. The clouds opened up enough to see numerous 2-4’ deep slides that occurred over the past week, on slopes down to 29-30 degrees. Many started quite low on the mountain. There were several places where 27-28 degree slopes had shattered into cracks without sliding.
I dug a pit on an east aspect at about 8200’, and found 130 cm of snow. An ECT failed at ECTP 29 at the interface of the basal junk and newer snow, about 90 cm down. Normally I would see this as an encouraging sign, but my pit today was purely academic and I skied dad pow all day. I did not experience any collapsing today, in stark contrast to the 2-300 collapses I got Nordic skiing around the hebgen basin yesterday.
A pit in the flank of an avalanche above Hebgen Lake. The stripe in the picture delineates the new snow over the unstable, old, faceted snow. This interface is where avalanches are occurirng. Karl Birkeland was using his 100 cm long Norwegian Battle Saw...a bit overkill. Photo: GNFAC
Crossing onto the debris of a large avalanche that likely released a couple days ago above Hebgen Lake. Photo: GNFAC
A small whumpf in the skin track was followed by a massive one a few minutes later. I can count on one hand the number of times I got whumpfs in a skin track...rare indeed. The second one was so big it had us both deeply concerned. We peeled off the skin track after deciding to not cross a gully and soon found debris from a sizeable avalanche that released a couple days ago about 500' above us. We dug in the flank and had 100cm of snow, 60 cm new from last week. The snowfall during the Avalanche Warning, doubled the depth and more than doubled the snow water equivalent of the snowpack. It was a large load and avalanches are breaking underneath the new snow.
Karl was using his 100 cm long Norwegian Battle Saw (pic)...a bit overkill.
Wind was calm and there was no new snow overnight. A small whumpf in the skin track was followed by a massive one a few minutes later. I can count on one hand the number of times I got whumpfs in a skin track...rare indeed. The second one was so big it had us both deeply concerned. We peeled off the skin track after deciding to not cross a gully and soon found debris from a sizeable avalanche that released a couple days ago about 500' above us. We dug in the flank and had 100 cm of snow, 60 cm new from last week. The snowfall during the Avalanche Warning, doubled the depth and more than doubled the snow water equivalent of the snowpack. It was a large load and avalanches are breaking underneath the new snow.
Karl was using his 100 cm long Norwegian Battle Saw (pic)...a bit overkill.
Skiers saw an entire bowl filled with shooting cracks where weak layers failed but the slope was not steep enough to avalanche. Photo: H Darby
An avalanche that failed a couple of days ago at Hebgen Lake. Photo: H. Darby
