Bridger Range

We skied to the east face in mostly calm conditions. Last night's 2" of new snow was not blown around. We could still see the crown of the natural avalanche that broke on Friday, 24 February. Skiing across wind drifts produced no cracking. We dug off the ridge on the east face near the first line down. HS was 215 and we got an ECTN 11 at 195 cm. With a load of new or windblown snow this layer could propagate, but not today. The snowpack consisted of multiple layers of wind slab which was not surprising given the location.

Yesterday and today from the the Throne and Fraiz area: with no wind we saw no signs of instability. The biggest challenge is the parking at Battle Ridge. Carefully asses your line before committing to entering the parking area and be prepared to fall back to a less ambitious parking plan if there are more than a couple of rigs already there. 

From IG: Skiers near Mt. Blackmore on 2/24 saw a large avalanche on the east side of Mt. Blackmore that appeared to have happened in the last 24 hours.

From email 2/24/23: "Came across this very large cornice that appeared to have broken naturally sometime in the past 24 hours. Saw a few others that had broken recently throughout our tour, but none as large as this." E. Heiman

We skied along the ridge to the Ramp. At times we had good visibility and were able to glass the west side and saw no avalanche activity. Alex saw only small slides yesterday to the south of the ski area. A squall in the pre-dawn hours rapidly dropped 3" of 18% snow (.5" SWE).  Winds had died down and there was no current loading as we traversed, but by the time we exited at noon snow was falling and winds were blowing north and east as the cold front hit. We dug a pit about 4 feet deep and found the new snow was not breaking in stability tests. We were encouraged by the lack of avalanche activity and no significant cracking on wind-loads, but we were still nervous given that 4 feet of snow had just fallen. We were not confident in the stability, but that will change with time as the snowpack adjusts to the heavy burden of new snow.

Drove up to Bridger at noon and saw a large avalanche on along the road north of the fire station. It was 75’ wide, 1-1.5’ deep and 25’ vertical. HS-N-R4-D1.5/2. It was on an east facing slope, south of the long slope that has cornices. Photo: GNFAC