Snow Observations List

We rode out Buck Ridge to Muddy Creek and towards Cedar Mtn.. We went to look at the large avalanches riders remotely triggered yesterday. In addition to three previously reported avalanches, we saw at least eight recent avalanches that were not previously reported and appeared to have occurred at various times over the last 1-3 days, natural and/or remote triggered by riders. A group in the parking lot mentioned seeing many slides actively happen in this area on Friday, and a couple slides looked crisp enough to have occurred within the last 12-24 hours. We saw at least six recent slides in Muddy Creek, two in McAtee Basin, and one in Second Yellow Mule. Most were 2-3' deep hard slabs, ranging from 50'-500' wide.

We also saw a fresh avalanche that we either triggered from 750-800 feet away or it broke naturally. This avalanche happened when we were riding near the larger of the two avalanches from yesterday, on the south side of Cedar Mtn. When we regrouped at the base of the recent avalanche I was scanning all the nearby slopes and did not see any fresh avalanches, and noted a huge cornice on a low convex slope. We then rode up and parked near the top of yesterday's slide, and Doug noticed a fresh slide on the slope I had just been starring at. It was a wind-loaded slope, actively loading. The avalanche was ~130' wide with 100' of 4-12" deep new snow/wind slab and 30' wide broke almost 3 feet deep on weak snow near the ground.

Skies were overcast to partly sunny. Wind was light to moderate from the southwest-west. It snowed lightly on and off all day. There was about 1" of new snow at noon at 9,000'.

All the recent large avalanches and a freshly triggered avalanche are clear signs that the snowpack is dangerous and people should avoiding riding on and below steep slopes.

From IG 2/18/24: “Human triggered slides in cooke yesterday.”

From IG: 2 avalanches from either this morning or yesterday at the bottom of Skyline ridge 2’ at the crown

We were a group of 12 riders skiing the ghost trees up Sheep. We had a safe crossing of the bottom of the large avy slope (south west side of Miller) before skinning up the ghost slope. 
There was 3 other parties, one group of 8, one of 2, and one of 3-4. A few whomps were heard/felt skiing without any propagation or slides on the slope we skied. We did see a few point release slides high up on Miller Ridge later in the afternoon, after the sun had been baking that slope all day. 
The skiing in the Ghost trees was great! Even with all the people. 
we did talk to the group of 3/4. Earlier in the day, they had skinned further up the drainage and climbed up a  west facing rib of Miller proper. On the first steeper slope while skinning up they experienced large snow settling and bailed. 
we could see their tracks, and there actually was a different group that had climbed even higher and skied. We didn’t see any slide activity on the slope they skied. 

On our skin out at 4:30 or so, we could feel the southwest facing snow was definitely sun affected from the solar bake.

Lots of natural activity up buck ridge. The one photoed looked like it popped off this morning. Most activity we saw seemed to be on northern facing aspects

From BSSP on 2/17/24: "Midafternoon we received another report of a skier triggered avalanche in the Lone Lake Circe, specifically The Mullet. The reporting party contacted several ski patrollers via cell phone and confirmed that nobody was injured or had taken the full ride. This avalanche failed near the ground on a high elevation NW facing slope with the weight of a single skier with an estimated size of HS-ASu-R3-D2.5-O."

From FB 02/17/24: "Observed runout debris from a small avalanche on a south facing forested slope in Upper Tepee Basin. Shows avalanches can occur through forested areas."

From email: "My partner and I toured up to the ridgeline overlooking Hebgen this morning, and I wanted to share our observations. With the exception of some light north winds while walking across the lake, winds were exceptionally calm the remainder of the day.

We noticed a multitude of slides on north- and east-facing slopes, many of which seemed to have been from the prior weekend. I snapped a picture of one on the opposite side of the drainage that was a couple of feet deep. Adjacent to it was some more debris.

We experienced no cracking/collapsing the entire day, which was honestly quite shocking. Given the exceptionally weak snowpack and recent avalanches, we stuck to the ridgeline and followed our uptrack down. Great turns regardless. "

North facing slope partially treelined, not heavily windloaded. Rider triggered, Ran 100yards downhill with large debris through trees, broke 2-3' deep at the crown sliding on near earth facets. 1 rider partially caught, airbag deployed, self-extracted with no injuries.

From woody ridge, we observed a large avalanche across the republic creek drainage (not sure what the peak is called but see the coordinates). I heard it first since it sounded like thunder or a plane, and then saw a huge cloud of snow moving down the mountain across the drainage.  We do not know if it was natural or triggered by someone.

We also observed large collapsing and whumpfing at the top of woody ridge on wind loaded slopes. Nothing moved as it was less than 30 degrees. 

Bozeman Snow Rangers patrolled Taylor Fork, arriving to 120 rigs in the parking lot. Lots of people stoked for a Blue bird powder day. New storm snow seemed to total ~16 inches up high. We saw numerous recent slab avalanches, some large; and parties reporting widespread collapsing. We observed large natural avalanches from afar on the west side of Snowslide Mountain, and the east aspect of a peak south of Woodward Mountain. We observed these from a few miles away and were probably several feet deep and a few hundred feet wide. We observed another, probably rider triggered avalanche in Wapiti Creek that broke on old snow near the ground ~2 feet deep and ~60ft across.

Temps were ~10F. winds were calm. Sunny.

Some cracks but not shooting.

Slabs growing at top of Bradley’s meadow, around 15-25cm in thickness.

East winds did a number and grew slabs in non-typical locations. 

From IG 2/17: “Out on the cedar/ bear creek wilderness line. 12'x200' and probably 6'x400' on the one in the trees. Both remote triggered. We watched em both come down.”

Saw small old wet slab slides on exposed south facing slopes, skied low angle ENE slopes, dug a pit and the snow was very stable

Probably heard the largest whumph i ever personally heard while skiing near the ridge on the Burn at Sheep Creek. Other groups also reported hearing whumphs too.

while skinning out of sheep on a southern aspect we started seeing signs of warming with little pinwheels but none grew big and none were natural.

Very different feeling from 1 week prior - no collapsing, no cracking, no recent avalanches. We stayed on conservative terrain but saw others venturing out a bit with no noticable activity. 

We dug on southern at 9200 ft  and got ECTN, however as we skinned up on the west side we noticed a little bit of whumphing and we noticed some collapsing while skiing small roll overs on the east aspect. 

From instagram: "Just getting to the ridge by prayer flags in Beehive basin. 100 maybe 200 yards wide. Cracked all the way around the corner almost to a couple old tracks. Seemed to be a natural from last night or this morning.

We saw another big natural avalanche further up the ridge into middle that was a few days old. Propagated across multiple gullies. Crown was 2-3 ft."

We rode up Denny Creek below Lionhead Ridge, then around to the north, through Watkins Creek and into the top of Targhee Creek. We saw a lot of old and recent avalanches that happened at various times over the last week, and in a wide variety of terrain. On lower elevation, generally non-wind-loaded terrain in the trees we saw at least 4 avalanches that were 2'+ deep and 100'+ wide. Near ridgelines there were many avalanches, harder slabs, 2'+ deep breaking hundreds of feet wide.

On our way out we saw a fresh avalanche in Watkins Creek that we think was triggered remotely during the day by a group that was riding in a flat meadow above, where we saw their tracks at least 150 feet away (photo). This slide was 2-3' deep and 100-150' feet wide, breaking on old sugary snow. HS-R3/4-D2-O. We rode along the flat terrain above the avalanche and could feel our sled tracks punch through the supportable slab into weak snow at the bottom of the snowpack.

We felt a couple collapses while sitting on our sleds, and saw a couple long shooting cracks while riding. We dug a snowpit in Targhee creek on a northwest facing slope at 9,435'. We had an ECTP27 below a 2.5' deep slab, sitting on 1.5' of weak sugary snow.

Skies were mostly sunny with a light breeze out of the north.

From email: "Was in round lake was visiting with a guy in the warm up shack.  He said he caused a decent size avalanche on the sheep mountain side. 

It was roughly 100 feet wide, he was hit by the avalanche but didn’t get buried."