Bridger Range

From Instagram story tag: there were many large storm slab avalanches in the northern Bridgers on Monday and Tuesday during the avalanche warning. 

Bottom of the Ramp, E aspect, 7900'. We found 24" of new snow which had nearly doubled the snowpack, leaving over five and half foot deep (HS 171) snowpack in this area. We got propagation (ECTP 24) at the storm snow interface. Photo: GNFAC

We rode into throne area to check it out today, left cars around 12pm

*Heads up the parking areas were unplowed and adventurous! *

In the meadows below the throne we saw HS 80cm -100cm around 6600-we mostly stayed on trail away from all the logs and stumps sticking out or only covered by storm snow. It was easy to trench all the way to ground in the lower meadow zone.

Skied on the sub ridge south of the throne HS 130-150 @ 7400. 

We saw numerous D1 dry loose avalanches and a few D2 slab avalanches between Ross and the throne, visibility was in and out so no pictures unfortunately. 

A handful of other riders were out, didn't hear of other avalanches from groups we talked to just lots of stucks in all the new snow. 

Over the last two days, 27" of snow and nearly 3" of SWE fell in the Bridger Range. Today, Dave and I toured out to the Ramp to see how the storm snow was shaping up. Visibility was limited at ridgetops, but we did see several storm snow avalanches just north of the Bridger Bowl boundary that failed yesterday. 

We dug a pit at the bottom of the Ramp on an E aspect at 7900'. We found 24" of new snow which had nearly doubled the snowpack, leaving over five and half foot deep (HS 171) snowpack in this area. In our snowpit test, we got propagation (ECTP 24) at the storm snow interface. We experienced no collapsing or cracking on our tour today. 

We decided to continue up the Ramp, but had a discussion before we entered the steepest portion of the route. Overall, our snowpit showed us signs that the storm snow has begun to settle out. Plus, we had not experienced any cracking or collapsing - but - as Mark mentioned two days ago in Cooke City, "a lack of collapsing doesn't override all the other red flags". Snow needs time to adjust from big changes, and 3" of water is an enormous load on our December snowpack. We chose the conservative option and turned, skiing excellent powder back into Bridger Bowl. 

Toured up the ramp at around 4 yesterday, snow was still falling heavily. Counted 4 or 5 natural storm slabs breaking mostly within the new snow. A skier before us triggered a slide in the chutes on a ski cut. I struggled to find a clean interface where the storm slabs were breaking on a few hand pits, mostly just a lot of fresh snow.