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Avy 1 course only costs $30 and is an absolute STEAL compared to what it costs in other parts of the country. Well worth the dollars - - and the fact that the money goes to Friends of the GNFAC too.

Beacon park is setup again this year at Beall Park so you can practice with your beacon there w/o having a partner. I believe it's open 24 hours a day too.

Are you talking about the ASMSU course this week? I'll be attending the lectures but can't make it to the field day. I couldn't find any level 1 courses for $30....all the AAI ones are $285+ which I simply don't have.

Great conditions for exploring around Cooke City the past weekend (not so great for quality turns, but oh well!).



Finally caught up with the enigmatic nomad again!

anyone else signed up for the asmsu class this week? I saw this and thought to myself " I'd be stupid not to attend!

ok, bozeman, spill the beans, share the good info. I'll go first. went up to hyalite creek today. MTavalanche said the condition was considerable, so I didn't expect much. I climbed up shower creek and ended up in that basin (I don't know the name). There were some debris from the storm, but no slides.


I dug a pit and did a ECT. South facing at around 9000 ft. lots of wind-loading, My snow pit had 3 ft of new snow on top of a thin ice crust. But I couldn't get it to propagate even I was pounding on it as hard as I could at the end. I did the test twice because I thought I did something wrong the first time. no propagation.


Well, one pit doesn't represent the whole mountain. so I dropped couple large chest cooler size cornice from the ridge (~10,000 ft). I watched them tumble down the slope (~35 degree), and nothing moved.

I'm not saying the condition is totally bomb proof right now. I don't want to be some knucklehead who'd jump in any slope just because it's a powder day. But,... anyway. Let me know if you saw something I missed.

thats great to see. planning on heading out into hyalite tomorrow. hopefully we'll find similar conditions. Thanks

Found similarly stable conditions at beehive/bear basin today. Lots of fresh snow. Compression test score: 26 (Q2), ECT did not propagate. The pit was on an east facing slope (30-35 degrees) at around 8500 feet. Found a 1-2 inch layer of facets about 18 inches deep with a thin crust on top of said weak layer. The test results above suggest the faceted layer has gained strength in the area, though it does still exist. In addition to these signs of stability, some skiers had kicked off 2 decent sized cornices on the ridge yesterday and nothing budged below. Sun was shining but the snow was still great. Awesome day all in all. Oh and some spots did have a small layer of hoar forming on the surface, though mainly at lower elevations...something to watch and keep in mind when the next storm hits.

That's great to hear guys. I also had a friend in the Spanish Peaks over the weekend who found similar results. I spent the weekend down in the southern Madisons with a bunch of friends. Unfortunately things weren't quite as stable down there, with buried facets actively propagating 1.5-2' down. 2 pits dug on E facing slopes b/w 8 & 9k', both broke at 12 or 13, fully propagated, Q2. Couple of good sized collapses as well. Good thing this area is a freaking pillow paradise (in addition to offering up 2500' fall lines that avoid avy terrain the whole time!).



Me, grabbing Indy



Nomad, always full of surprises, found conditions soft enough to get inverted.



Some fun looking future objectives

The GOAT is finally finished and ready to rip. I was checking missoulaavalanche.org and saw they had a few level 1 options, one this weekend which was full and another for the first weekend in March so I signed up for that one ($190). Friday evening 4 hr class down in Hamilton followed by 2 field days up off of Lost Trail.

Another buddy of mine is doing the Level 1 at Altoona this weekend but that was a bit too rich for my blood ($425 gets you an all inclusive weekend of avy education fun).

Good to hear that the conditions are cooperating for you guys down around the bzn area!

Out poking around in Hyalite Sunday (oh yeah, it really snowed a foot on Sat night). I stuck to low elev. low angles, mostly because I was too lazy to break trail. Things looked pretty solid out there, no natural nor skier triggered slides. However, I dug a pit and got an ECTP 28 (NE facing, around 7500 ft). The layer that failed was the old faceted snow from the dry period in late Jan. I wonder if anybody got similar, or different observations this weekend.

Glad to hear it was good. I was all packed to check out a new zone out there (low angle stuff to mitigate the storm) when my gal came down with a migraine. Next weekend I guess.

We rode on and around Divide Peak on Saturday. Things were plenty locker up there, enough so that I didn't even bother with a real pit. Hand pits showed no funky layers under the new snow (probably 3-4" on Sat). Rode a variety of aspects b/w SE and NE and had outstanding conditions. Did notice an old(?) sizeable slide below one of the N facing cliffs directly across from Divide, but didn't bother venturing over to check it out.

Friends on Alex Lowe Peak reported some windloading to E aspects on Saturday, which seems odd since it was almost dead calm all day near Divide.

Did you happen to see our snow cave up there, Nick? Curious how it's faring.



Yesterday's avalanche report spoke of a slide that took a guy down on what I presume was the "backside" of Blackmore.