Southern Gallatin

Took three laps at Trapper Ridge today. 5 avalanches were observed on the s-w slope well below the ridge line on Sage Peak. Whumpfing occurred on the established skin track on our second and third runs of the day. The whumpfs were confined to low elevation e-ne slopes and had less energy then many of whumpfs this season (still impressive though). We observed three avlanches on the e-ne slopes with crowns roughly 2-3 feet deep. One of the three avalanches was quite old. The others appeared to have occurred recently. Another large collapse with multiple crack was observed on an east facing slope. The collapse seems to have been incredibly close to sliding as the initial ‘crown’ was pulled away from the snow above it but did not have enough energy to I’ve more than a foot or two down slope. Must have been a degree or two from sliding??? This collapse was found around all three e-ne avalanches. 

Wind was calm and there was no new snow overnight. A small whumpf in the skin track was followed by a massive one a few minutes later. I can count on one hand the number of times I got whumpfs in a skin track...rare indeed. The second one was so big it had us both deeply concerned. We peeled off the skin track after deciding to not cross a gully and soon found debris from a sizeable avalanche that released a couple days ago about 500' above us. We dug in the flank and had 100 cm of snow, 60 cm new from last week. The snowfall during the Avalanche Warning, doubled the depth and more than doubled the snow water equivalent of the snowpack. It was a large load and avalanches are breaking underneath the new snow.

Karl was using his 100 cm long Norwegian Battle Saw (pic)...a bit overkill.