Skied the second meadow this morning. S1 to S2 precipitation while we were in the area; cloud ceiling was around 8000' around 7am and lifted to ~9000' by 9:30am; calm winds. Ski tracks from yesterday had ~2-6" on them. Snow was deep and dry; no signs of avalanches or instability were observed.
We skied around Sawtelle Peak today where there is a solid 4 feet of snow at 8750' where we restarted the snow depth sensor which is working now.
The good: We didn't see any recent avalanches, but we were traveling on foot and couldn't see all the terrain. The weak layer of snow that formed on the snow surface after Thanksgiving into early December is slowly gaining strength. There's also a ton of snow and coverage has improved dramatically.
The bad: The weak layer of facets is generally in the middle of the snowpack and can be found on all slopes. The recent snow is the first big test of this weak layer, and it produced numerous big rumbling collapses on both an East and Southwest aspect. These collapses are an obvious sign of unstable snow and told me not to trust the snowpack.
Of interest: There are several thin rain crusts within the upper two feet of snow. You'll likely feel the upper most rain crust under your track but not under skis. The attached photo shows the most recent freezing rain event on the trunks of trees.
We rode into throne area to check it out today, left cars around 12pm
*Heads up the parking areas were unplowed and adventurous! *
In the meadows below the throne we saw HS 80cm -100cm around 6600-we mostly stayed on trail away from all the logs and stumps sticking out or only covered by storm snow. It was easy to trench all the way to ground in the lower meadow zone.
Skied on the sub ridge south of the throne HS 130-150 @ 7400.
We saw numerous D1 dry loose avalanches and a few D2 slab avalanches between Ross and the throne, visibility was in and out so no pictures unfortunately.
A handful of other riders were out, didn't hear of other avalanches from groups we talked to just lots of stucks in all the new snow.
Over the last two days, 27" of snow and nearly 3" of SWE fell in the Bridger Range. Today, Dave and I toured out to the Ramp to see how the storm snow was shaping up. Visibility was limited at ridgetops, but we did see several storm snow avalanches just north of the Bridger Bowl boundary that failed yesterday.
We dug a pit at the bottom of the Ramp on an E aspect at 7900'. We found 24" of new snow which had nearly doubled the snowpack, leaving over five and half foot deep (HS 171) snowpack in this area. In our snowpit test, we got propagation (ECTP 24) at the storm snow interface. We experienced no collapsing or cracking on our tour today.
We decided to continue up the Ramp, but had a discussion before we entered the steepest portion of the route. Overall, our snowpit showed us signs that the storm snow has begun to settle out. Plus, we had not experienced any cracking or collapsing - but - as Mark mentioned two days ago in Cooke City, "a lack of collapsing doesn't override all the other red flags". Snow needs time to adjust from big changes, and 3" of water is an enormous load on our December snowpack. We chose the conservative option and turned, skiing excellent powder back into Bridger Bowl.
