24-25

Near Cooke City on 4/19 skiers triggered a dry loose avalanche and a small wind slab avalanche. The wind slab broke in a drifted pocket near the base of cliffs, 3-6" deep x 10' wide. Northeast aspect, 10,200'. Photo: GNFAC

Near Cooke City on 4/19 skiers triggered a dry loose avalanche and a small wind slab avalanche. The wind slab broke in a drifted pocket near the base of cliffs, 3-6" deep x 10' wide. Northeast aspect, 10,200'.

Today (Saturday, 4/19), I triggered a small soft-slab avalanche at about 7,700' on a E-NE aspect on the headwall between Frazier Lake and Angier Lake in the northern Bridgers. The slide was maybe 6" deep, 20' wide and ran 100-200 feet and involved only the new storm snow over the icy, thick crust underneath. No one was caught or injured, though I had a bit of a scare because my dog was right in the path (luckily she outran it). We had gone up with the intention of skiing the Ainger "Love Chutes", but bailed partway up when that whole aspect turned out to be breakable crust. However, we had beta from another party that conditions on the Frazier-Angier headwall were good, so decided to check that out. We skinned up without incident, following a well-set skin track that followed the line of least resistance; snow surface was variable but seemed stable. Coming down, we mostly followed the ascent route, but towards the end I was tempted onto a fun-looking, untracked stash a bit to skier's left, that seemed only a tad steeper than the ascent line. A few turns into this line is when I triggered the slide, right at the steepest part (mid-high 30s). It definitely took me by surprise given that we'd been skiing great, stable powder in the Bridgers the past couple days. No harm done but definitely a good wake-up call! 

Meant to submit this yesterday (4/18), saw this one wet loose slide that naturally started off some rocks. Decent size by the bottom. Other than that, just some spiff. Surprisingly didn’t see any big wind slabs trigger, despite the widespread wind effect in the northern Bridger’s. Lots of wind scour on southerly aspects. Northern aspects had wind loading. 

"yesterday (4/18), saw this one wet loose slide that naturally started off some rocks. Decent size by the bottom. Other than that, just some spiff. Surprisingly didn’t see any big wind slabs trigger, despite the widespread wind effect in the northern Bridger’s. Lots of wind scour on southerly aspects. Northern aspects had wind loading." Photo: W. Landry

We rode up to the old weather station and then to the current weather station, down Airplane Bowl, along the base of the LH Ridge to the head of Targhee Creek and back. There is a 4-5" Thick refrozen crust below 3-5 inches of new snow at upper elevations. At lower elevations, there was less snow, and I suspect more rain, and east winds stripped many of the upper starting zones back down to the melt-freeze crust. 

There was little, if any danger of avalanches today. You may have been able to find an isolated wind slab from the east wind-loading, but it would have been small in area and depth. We rode out at 2 PM and the crust had not started breaking down in any meaningful way. 

Tomorrow is supposed to be 8-10 degrees F warmer, but cold temperatures tonight should refreeze the crust, and it is pretty robust. There may be a few very small, wet snow avalanches in the recent snow with warming temperatures, but I would not be particularly worried about slides. There is more snow and colder temps forecast for Sunday and Monday. Fingers crossed for a bit more powder riding. 

The road from the Buttermilk TH was reasonable but is melting out quickly. There were a few dirt patches that will grow tomorrow. 

Beautiful day to spend in the mountains and the riding through the upper bowls was quite nice.