Northern Madison

It was snowing heavily around noon when we left the Beehive parking lot but didn't last long. Light snowfall throughout our tour, 2cm of new snow on the skin track. Light wind at the ridgeline. No obvious signs of instability. We skied partway into Bear Basin, dug at the top of that steep rollover halfway down. HS 65, 8600', NE80. Got ECTP13 on a layer of facets about 25cm up from the ground above a decomposing ice crust.

Took advantage of yesterday's fresh snow and headed to Beehive Basin for a short tour searching for soft snow. I did not make any formal observations on the day, but dug a handful of quick hand pits and probed for layers on a number of aspects. Our travel varied on all aspects except for true north facing slopes and we stayed between 8000' and 9000'. There seemed to be about 4-8 inches of fresh snow that fell on a variety of surfaces ranging from melt freeze crusts on solar aspects to snow that stayed dry through the last warm-up on shadier slopes. There was very little evidence of wind on the new snow and fresh cornice formation was minimal.

Overall snow depths ranged from about 2' to 3' and coverage was quite good for this time of year. Shadier slopes yielded an encouraging snowpack that felt mostly right side up with relatively strong grains. The new snow was not forming any real slab. On solar aspects the snowpack was much more variable/upside down and the snow underneath the melt freeze crust felt weak. On one particular hand pit, while cutting a block, the new snow and underlying crust failed in the old snow as one cohesive piece. Overall, great day out, with awesome snow, and I am excited about what I'm seeing for the most part. 

Cracking on old, faceted, October snow hundreds of feet long. North facing near treeline. Photo: BSSP

Intentional, human-triggered avalanche by a ski patrol breaking at the ground on a north facing slope near treeline. Photo: BSSP

From email: "Northerly facing terrain harbors October snow, which has faceted. It is holding up plenty of dense snow and wind slab from the quite snowy and windy November. It was unable to hold the additional weight of a human trigger, and two pockets failed at the ground, which produced avalanches. Crown height maxed at 2’. Notably, where it did not avalanche, the failure propagated hundreds of feet down the ridge. It is a good data point- northerly aspects near tree line have potential instability."

The snowpack remains thin (20-25 inches of mostly unconsolidated base) and there were plenty of rocks and stumps to hit, but coverage was better than I expected (and probably better than most of December 2023). Photo: GNFAC

On the drive toward Gallatin Canyon this morning, we saw large plumes of snow blowing off the high peaks. We didn't see evidence of recent wind transport on our tour, but I'd be watching out for it. Photo: GNFAC