From the phone message: A skier on the south side of Bradley's Meadow triggered an avalanche and was caught and carried by the slide. Thankfully, everyone was okay.
I slid down the ridgeline between Truman and jones creek on Friday. Dug a quick pit where Alex likes to dig on the wnw aspect of the shoulder next to the main path. Melt/freeze at the ground about a foot thick, ten inches of loose facets on that, and a wind crust topping it 1-4 inches thick. And 5 inches of new snow. I skied the ridge down and the old drifts were supportable but intermittent. Eighteen inches of faceted snow in between that made for challenging skiing. It will be interesting to see what 2 inches of swe will do
I recieved a call from BBSP patrol director at 9:50.
They had widespread, hair-trigger results during avalanche mitigation work.
A lot of slopes avalanched naturally before patrol made it up the mountain.
At 0900 they measured 1.8" of snow water equivalent (SWE) from the last 24 hours at the Alpine gun mount.
Dug at 7000ft up Brackett Creek near but well below Texas Meadow. HS82 with mid pack weak(er) layers that produced propagation in an extended column test (ECTP13) at around 45cm down. Snowing steadily in the afternoon with no wind at this mid elevation.
testing snow observations form
A member of the Bridger Bowl Ski Patrol reported a relatively small, natural avalanche between the North and South Saddle Peak (in an area appropriately referred to as "Between the Peaks").
image of surface hoar crystals seen in the snowpit wall
Digging snowpit near top of the ramp Dec 22
