Southern Madison

Buried SH below the 2/1 storm. 1-2cm thick layer buried approximately 20cm deep below F precip particles. Photo: M Zia 

See attached profile and photos.

Buried SH below the 2/1 storm. 1-2cm thick layer buried approximately 20cm deep below F precip particles. Surface snow had some graupel particles in it as well.

We went to the Taylor Fork area and into Cub/Cabin Creek to see what snow surface was buried by recent snow (about 0.8" swe in this area).

It was easy to find small facets in every pit we dug (some had surface hoar as well). We looked at N, SW, W, and E aspects at elevations around 9000 ft. On a north aspect, they were 1mm facets chained together almost 10mm long.

Consistently these weak layer were 8-10" deep (more in areas with drifting). They produced easy ECTP's and one ECTPV.

What was remarkable is that this layer produced shooting cracks all day long. They were generally subtle but would shoot 10-50 feet.

WHAT TO DO? Now is time to shift our mindset to "stepping back". Lots of great powder is on the way. Unfortunately this snow will likely come with a lot of wind. The more snow/water and wind that come, the bigger of a step back, we'll need to take in our terrain choices. By the end of the week, we will likely be avoiding all avalanche terrain including runout zones in areas that get 3-4" of swe.

From email: "Today I drove down Taylor fork road, with the thought of potentially getting up on woodward mtn, until I saw a crown on the NE
Face of its northern summit, basically wall to wall near the top of  the slide path. There were a couple other sled tracks that also went to the end of the road, so I figured maybe it was pretty recent, as I didn’t hear about it in the advisory. Concerning because it appears to have propagated maybe 250ft across,  while maybe only 1-2 ft deep". Photo taken on 1/30/25. Photo: T. Grande

From email: "Today I drove down Taylor fork road, with the thought of potentially getting up on woodward mtn, until I saw a crown on the NE
Face of its northern summit, basically wall to wall near the top of  the slide path. There were a couple other sled tracks that also went to the end of the road, so I figured maybe it was pretty recent, as I didn’t hear about it in the advisory. Concerning because it appears to have propagated maybe 250ft across,  while maybe only 1-2 ft deep"