Photos

Avalanche near Wall Lake north of Cooke City. Observed Saturday 2/10 and likely ran during recent heavy snowfall. Photo: R. Taylor

Large natural avalanche on Mt. Republic. This is a heavily wind loaded slope as indicated by large overhanging cornices, and likely broke at the end of the recent storm that dropped 6 feet of snow (6" SWE) in seven days. Photo: B. Fredlund

A skier triggered a large cornice from the ridge above the Hourglass chute north of Bridger Bowl on 2/9. It entrained recent snow and ran into flat terrain across a common skin track. No one was caught. Photo: M. Feduschak

A skier triggered a large (7'x25') cornice from the ridge above the Hourglass chute north of Bridger Bowl on 2/9. They were skiing along the ridgeline, 10-15' back from the edge when a large chunk broke off nearby. It entrained recent snow and ran over 1,000' into flat terrain across a common skin track, and broke trees up to 8" diameter. No one was caught.

A skier triggered a large cornice from the ridge above the Hourglass chute north of Bridger Bowl on 2/9. It entrained recent snow and ran into flat terrain across a common skin track. No one was caught. Photo: P. Puettmann

Avalanche observed Friday 2/9 around 8,800' on a southerly aspect. Likely snowmobile triggered. Photo: L. Richards

Debris of snowmobile triggered slide in Crazies on 2/9. Photo: R. Sheridan

Crown of snowmobile triggered slide in Crazy Mtns on Friday 2/9. Photo: R. Sheridan

Skiers saw this natural avalanche occur on Friday (2/9) on a W-SW aspect around 9,500' near Yellowstone N.P. Photo: B. Fredlund

A layer of surface hoar buried two feet deep produced unstable results up the Taylor Fork in the southern Madison Range. Photo: GNFAC 

These small natural slides occurred on heavily wind loaded slopes up the Maid of the Mist drainage in Hyalite. A few inches of new snow and strong westerly winds are making wind slabs the primary avalanche concern. Photo: P. Honsinger 

A cornice at the front door of the Round Lake Warming Hut is a sure sign that it's been snowing and blowing a ton, hence the Avalanche Warning! Photo: GNFAC

This natural avalanche occurred late in the day on Feb 5 (Mon) at 9800' on the northeast face of Sheep Mountain outside Cooke City. This was the tail end of the storm and on the day we issued an Avalanche Warning. Photo: J. Schutz

On Tuesday, Feb 6, "Woke up this morning to a fresh deep slab avalanche that was triggered by a cornice drop sometime early this morning on east Woody Ridge.... Estimated D3.5 R4... This path has had several avalanches this season, but the crown looks to be at least 10' tall on lookers right." Photo: B. Zavora

Eric Knoff and Doug Chabot talk about how steep a slope you need to dig a pit on to get good data. The answer is, "Not that steep".

Natural avalanche east of Peak 9595' in YNP. Photo B. Fredlund

A small avalanche low on Baronette Peak. This is to the left of a popular climb, Dancing with Hippos. Small avalanches are especially dangerous to ice climders. Photo: B. Fredlund

On February 4th (Sun) skiers found shallow wind slabs on northerly aspects heading up to the Blackmore/Elephant saddle in hasty tests. They observed ECTP18 failure of a wind slab at ~25cm depth in the NE bowl of Alex Lowe Peak and observed recent slide activity in and below Hellmouth couloir. It appeared a small pocket had ripped out of the couloir and a larger slab had triggered in the apron below. Photo: C. Ronemus

A skier triggered this avalanche on Saturday (2/3). It was a wind slab about 18” deep, 150’ wide and ran about 300-400 vertical feet. From e-mail: "Strange thing is that was only about a 25 degree slope, possibly 28 near the crown. One friend was caught in the slide and rode down the path on some of the blocks. Said i‎t was so slow moving it creeped down the hill." Photo: Anonymous 

This small slide was observed by snowmobilers in the Lionhead area near West Yellowstone. Small slides are a clear indicator that larger slides are possible. Photo: L. Read.