Southern Gallatin

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 FB message 1/19: "In between redstreak peak and white peak... The whole slope cracked...  the one I stopped on I put my leg in the crack and went to my knee inside the crack"

Screenshots from videos sent in messenger

Natural avalanche spotted from the air on Red Mountain, just west of Ernest Miller Ridge

This avalanche was spotted from the air on Wednesday, Jan 15 on Red Mountain in the southern Madison Range (just west of Ernest Miller Ridge).

It appears to be on an east facing slope at around 9800 ft.

Unsurprisingly there’s still a shallow weak snowpack up specimen creek and the adjacent drainages. I had lots of collapsing today, especially in wind affected areas near ridge tops. This coincided with an ectp23 I got on a south facing slope near the head of Wikiup creek. The snowpack has a similar set up to the rest of the advisory area with basal facets underneath a dense slab, but overall shallower.

The biggest hazard out there is still probably the low cover and boot top potential, I was tip toeing over downed trees all day.