Plenty of wind slabs ranging in size on Lionhead ridge and on surrounding slopes. Photo: Riley
Forecast link: GNFAC Avalanche Forecast for Wed Feb 5, 2025
Plenty of wind slabs ranging in size on Lionhead ridge and on surrounding slopes. Photo: Riley
Plenty of wind slabs ranging in size on Lionhead ridge and on surrounding slopes. Photo: Riley
Plenty of wind slabs ranging in size on Lionhead ridge and on surrounding slopes. Photo: Riley
Some recent avalanche activity noted on east Mt. Henderson. Photo: B Fredlund
Toured up around fairy lake today, winds were ripping all day. Saw several d1 soft slabs in upper elevation terrain, many of them running quite far. We opted ski a lower elevation zone and were surprised to find a soft slab (d1/r1) that ran on an east facing slope at about 7500’ and about 500-600 ft below the ridge line on a slope just over 30 degrees.
Saw a number of slides today, as to be expected. All the large ones I noticed were north facing. Also, the dirty snow was so odd to see mid winter. It was brown all over the sled zone.
N face of crown butte, looks like it slid before the dirt event (we think the end of the storm yesterday/ or last night must have been dirty snow?). It was extremely deep and terrible vis yesterday, but blower snow. Not the case today with how warm it got.
This is the N side of scotch bonnet, looks like a big break, didn’t get any closer than this however.
Also saw some decent sized slides on the N side of Henderson, but was too far away to get photos.
Just a little wind load cornice break, but it broke while I was coming down that track to the right.
Skier triggered wind slab avalanche on Saddle Peak. Photo: BBSP
While sledding today we observed 3 different avalanches. The first was on E Henderson above the bench in nearly the same spot as the 12/30 avalanche. It ran sometime between 11:30 and 12:30 today.
The second was on the north aspect of Scotch Bonnet. The third was on the north aspect of Crown Butte. We don't think these broke on any deep PWLs, since none of the crowns were impressively deep. The latter two likely ran at the end of the storm yesterday. The crowns were starting to drift in, but there was little to no new snow on the debris.
Notably, there is a widespread dust layer on the snow surface, and possibly another layer further down within the recent storm snow.
Blowing snow was moderate to intense at ridgetops and west aspects are scoured. Winds were light to moderate out of the S and W. Skies were SCT to BKN.