Island Park

This on one of over 15 avalanches snowmobilers saw today, 01/30/2024. These avalanches likely happened on 01/29 or the morning of 01/30. Photo. N.

Over 15 slides spotted on our ride today. Both large and small. Mostly south facing slopes with a large one on a north facing slope. Several hills with visible cracking and ready to let loose. 

We spent the last two days riding in the Centennial Mountains. We had limited visibility for spotting avalanches but we did catch sight of one slide on a steep slope above Yale Creek. 

There were fewer in-your-face signs of instability, such as the avalanches, shooting cracks, and collapsing, which were a staple of conditions last week. However, when we dug deeper (get it), we found the ingredients for a human-triggered avalanche in every snowpit we explored. All failed and propagated on the surface hoar or near surface facets buried 1-2 feet deep, with results varying from ECTV to ECTP21 indicating human-triggered avalanches are likely. 

I told my riding partners that, in some ways, I am more worried about people triggering avalanches this week than last because last week, incredibly obvious signs of instability and avalanche warnings largely kept people out of avalanche terrain. This week, the feedback is not as clear, and folks may get tempted by steeper slopes. Our recommendation is to play the long game. Persistent weak layers demand persistent patience. Our best tool to have safe and enjoyable days in the mountains remains conservative terrain selection and sticking to slopes less than 30 degrees. 

South of two top north west of trail intersection #20. (saturday 1/27)

rode low angle stuff all day, creek bottom is normally not visible and its down to dirt. The whole area (south of two top) seemed really shallow and west facing slopes were very windswept when exposed, but filled in down low.

We found that the weak layers are all over the place after the warm weather and rain. Super faceted snowpack everywhere we went and even in low angle trees you could stick your hand in next to where a snowmobile track was and break a slab off. When rolling sleds over on a small hill we broke off lots of big 3' x 3' chunks down to the old really deep  weak layer.

We did not see any avalanches.

Conduction ECT test. 
Observed two well preserved layer of surface hoar
1st layer- 45 cm below surface. 3cm thick layer of surface hoar.