Bridger Range

Toured up the ramp and north towards hourglass couloir right after heavy snowfall at Bridger. Observed presumably natural wind slab avalanche crown at top of Hourglass (picture). Broke roughly 200ft wide and rather shallow, did not manage to run fully into the apron. Also noted many other small natural avalanches almost all breaking right at the top of the ridge. Strong winds from west loading slopes. Followed some solo tracks down just skiers left of hourglass, noted some instability but no major propagation or slides while skiing. Storm slab not quite cohesive this evening, but could definitely see it getting pretty spooky tomorrow.

This was a small remote trigger next to the skin track, about 20 feet wide by 10 feet long.  Photo: K Gordon

Remote trigger, SE facing slope, ~100' crown, ~3" depth.  Photo: M Gillies

While skiing at Lewis and Clark yesterday, I triggered a small wind slab (roughly 2ft rectangle) while traversing into the run with no propagation. While we skied the run, there was some pretty heavy sluffing. Much of the surface was wind-affected, with a dense top layer that broke through to a weaker, less dense layer. 

After skiing Bradley's Meadow, we skied north into Wolverine Bowl aiming to go up the backside of Texas Meadows. When we were in the large flat meadow to the north of Hourglass Chute we heard two avalanches come down from the ridge a few hundred yards north of Hourglass. Too low of vis to estimate size or see anything but the powder clouds come over the bottom cliffs. 

Skied the East Meadows of Ross Peak, had about 4 inches of fresh snow come down in 2 hours. Lots of cracking and small storm slabs remote triggering on small rollovers on the way out. This was a small remote trigger next to the skin track, about 20 feet wide by 10 feet long. New wet snow seemed especially poorly bonded with the old snow below 7000 feet where the snow fell on very cold snow from affected by the inversion.  

New storm snow accumulating over the course of the morning became quite reactive once we descended out of the inversion.  Significant change starting around 7,200', where the surface had remained cold. We didn't observe any signs of instability while skiing between ~8,200' and ~7,200'.

Photo is a of remote trigger, SE facing slope, ~100' crown, ~3" depth.  Lots of shooting cracks and smaller remote triggers while touring out the FS roads.