Bridger Range

I sunk to the ground on Mt Ellis when I stepped out of my skis. A poor, unsupportable structure is not everywhere, but it certainly was on the ridge. Photo: GNFAC

Lots of cracking any wind blow sluff triggers easy

Snow shoed from the lower reaches of the fairy lake trail head to the lake today. Wind picked up mid morning moving a lot of loose snow around and had 1’ ground blizzards at times. Snow seemed to be pretty weak in most places I traveled creating hard conditions to snow shoe effectively off trail. I never dug a pit but in helping dig out a few snowmobiles the snow was mostly made of facets and inconsistent in structure. 

We skied up the Throne and encountered serious wind effected terrain. Some slopes were blown clear, others has ripples of sastrugi, and yet others were wind-loaded. After a pit down low yielded nothing significant, we skied higher to look for wind-loaded slopes. We found a natural crack that occurred in a wind slab, and then we dug near the ridge at a spot we typically descend. We got an ECTP9, an unstable test result. The video shows it well. Wind loads are isolated, but they could avalanche. They are easy to find: they were the only smooth parts of the slope.

Karl Birkeland got an ECTP9 under a wind slab on the Throne. We could feel the hard slab and softer, weaker snow under it with our ski pole. Photo: GNFAC

We founds areas that were scoured to the dirt and adjacent areas loaded from the wind. The evidence of strong wind was everywhere. Photo: GNFAC

At the ridgetop of the Throne we found deep wind slabs that had cracked naturally; a sign of instability. Photo: GNFAC