Southern Gallatin

A small avalanche was seen in Black Bear Canyon on 01/14. This was a recent avalanche that happened today or yesterday 01/13. 

A small avalanche was noted in Black Bear Canyon on a northeast facing slope. Snow was wind loaded, cornices were seen on nearby slopes. This appeared to be storm slab and likely rider triggered. Slope was greater than 30 degrees. 

Cracking at Fawn Pass this was accompanied by multiple collapses during the tour. Photo: S. Reinsel

I skied up toward fawn pass today, and had a few notable observations. We had multiple collapses during our ski, and one 40’x40’ slope had a large collapse on the trip up and again on the way down. I noticed one meadow that had collapsed before we were out, and the new snow had sheared off of several downed logs. Most notably, my tracks from a month ago were easy to follow in a few places. 

We toured into Bacon Rind which involved navigating downfall at the start which became easier as the snow got deeper. We found 2 feet of snow on the ground, all of it sugary facets capped with big feathers of surface hoar. We had no whumpfing or cracking and saw no avalanches. We dug 2 snowpits and got no breaks in our stability test because the weak, sugary snow did not have a denser slab sitting above it (ECTX). The danger is LOW, yet new snow, even a small amount, may ramp the danger up. For now, it is weak and stable. The skiing progressively got worse as we descended, which was no surprise.