Photos

A skier outside of Cooke City observed this large natural avalanche on a mid elevation, south facing slope. The slide broke up to 3' deep and 200' wide. Photo: Beau Fredlund 

The avalanche failed on a thick (10cm) layer of facets that were sitting on an ice crust. The slide was a natural soft slab avalanche that broke with just a few new inches of snow and wind. Photo: D. Zinn

Doug and some riders from ND and Manitoba check out a natural avalanche that happened yesterday at Lionhead. The slide was 2 feet deep and 400 feet wide. More snow in the next two days will definitely produce more avalanches. Photo: D. Zinn

Skiers noted that the east face of Mt. Blackmore was largely unaffected by the wind and had many natural dry loose sluffs. They observed no evidence of natural activity from deeper seated instabilities. Photo: B. VandenBos

On Christmas day a skier triggered this small, soft slab avalanche on a southwest facing slope below treeline in Hayden Creek, south of Cooke City. The slide failed on as  facets under the new snow. Photo: F. Madsen

West of Sliver Creek, to the west of Cooke City a skier triggered a soft slab avalanche that was wind-loaded with the storm snow. The slide was south facing at 9,000 feet at an abrupt change in the angle of slope (prob 38-40 degrees). Nobody was caught. Crown was 50-60 cm, and propagated out to the adjoining slope,150' wide and 300' long. Photo: Anon

West of Sliver Creek, to the west of Cooke City a skier triggered a soft slab avalanche that was wind-loaded with the storm snow. The slide was south facing at 9,000 feet at an abrupt change in the angle of slope (prob 38-40 degrees). Nobody was caught. Crown was 50-60 cm, and propagated out to the adjoining slope,150' wide and 300' long. Photo: Anon

Light winds created small, but reactive soft slabs on Woody Ridge to the south of Cooke City. Photo: N. Stayner

A picture of Sphinx Mountain from Buck Ridge. The ice climbs on the north face are still in, but the slopes getting to them are loaded with fresh, windblown snow. Photo: GNFAC

This photo was taken with a telephoto from Buck Ridge looking south into the Taylor-Hilgard. This natural avalanche occurred on an east facing slope on Shedhorn Mountain in front of Koch Peak. This was the only avalanche seen today. Photo: GNFAC

Ripples are evidence that strong winds hit the snow surface and loaded slopes. This picture was in McAtee Basin in the N Madison at the end of Buck Ridge. Strong northwest winds ahead of the cold front created these waves of soft wind slabs. Photo: GNFAC

Wind transport near Cooke City. Strong northwest wind drifted recent low density snow into slabs near ridgelines. Some of these slabs extend far and wide. Photo: GNFAC

A skier outside of Cooke City observed this natural avalanche on a SE facing slope around 9,000 ft. This slide appears to have failed on layer of facets sitting over the Thanksgiving ice crust. Photo: B. Fredlund. 

Cornice triggered avalanche near Cooke City. December 21, 2017. Photo: B. Fredlund

Avalanche on wind loaded slope near Cooke City. December 21, 2017. Photo: B. Fredlund

There was not much avalanche activity in Sunlight Basin at Taylor Fork today (S. Madison Range). Only saw this small 1' thick wind slab avalanche that released naturally. Wind-loaded slopes will continue to be a concern with more snow and wind forecasted. Photo: GNFAC

Photo: S. Reinsel

This photo was taken up Hyalite from Divide Peak. Variable winds both scoured and loaded many slopes at all elevations. In this photo a NW facing slope was scoured to the ground while the lee side was loaded with wind slabs and cornice growth. Photo: G. Antonioli

Winds have been strong and moved snow into drifts at the ridge lines and cross-loaded mid-elevation slopes. A skier saw this natural avalanche get triggered by a falling cornice on the ridge between Beehive and Middle Basins. Photo: S. Casper.

A skier wrote the following email with the picture. The red line marks the crown. Wind-loading was the likely trigger.

"From the ridge between the east and north face on Mount Blackmore we observed a crown line on the north ridge of Blackmore. The crown line was approximately 150' long and 1'-2' deep. We skied the SE terrain on the skiers left side of the east face of Blackmore, so we didn't get close to the crown line to inspect the snow. There were no tracks visible near the avalanche so it was likely naturally triggered by wind-loading blowing over the ridge from the west." Photo: T. Chingas