Splitboard.com Forums

Damn straight all is changed. Never seen so many HIGH avalanche danger notes in one avy report before!

Well I figured I should make the first post of 2012 to document yet more crappy conditions.
Spent the weekend touring in the Beartooths near Red Lodge again. Saw some older slab avalanche activity and even some major
wetslide activity on a SE facing slope!
Big crown above Misery Bowl which we'd ridden a couple weeks earlier (on 2' of facets!):

Wet slides in another cirque further south:

Text from the adventure if anyone cares: http://mtsplitski.wordpress.com/2012/01 ... ilver-run/
We did surprisingly find some good powderlike snow on a sheltered, lower elevation n/ne aspect the next day.
Other than after work History Rock tours in the late PM, I haven't toured in Bozeman since early Dec!
Lots of travel w/ the holidays. Anyone getting out around Bozeman (or elsewhere)?

Rode Lick Creek this weekend. There's so little snow up there that there's hardly enough for a slab to even be sitting atop a weak layer. The skinning and the turns felt good regardless.

Cold be damned, I finally found some time for a bigger tour on Saturday up below Hyalite Peak. Things were definitely stabilizing up there and quality was maintaining so well. However, the summit shut me out once again due to some touchy windslabs in the exposed n/ne facing zone on the peak. On a representative slope, we got an ECTP 16 Q1 breaking on small facets about 60-70cm down! Yikes. Still, managed some awesome fun riding on blower pow.
Lapped the heck out of the slopes below the headwall, which are sheltered enough and offer up some seriously fun terrain. Plenty of rock jibs and natural halfpipes.
Photos and words for anyone inclined: http://mtsplitski.wordpress.com/2012/01 ... ite-creek/ or a TR here on the site.

Did a quick History Rock lap b/w classes today. Lots of windloading going on on E and NE aspects (like the meadows).
Seemed to be bonding relatively well. Conditions were fun and creamy.

That is quite the slab, jeez.

Spent the weekend down in the mountains around West. Tons o new snow resting atop an extremely weak and faceted snowpack (no surprise there!).
Sunday, though, things had gained a surprising amount of strength since Saturday.
Found this little avy in the trees. Steep rollover next to some rocks.

How was your weekend Sam?

Saddle between Blackmore and Elephant was a goddamn shit show of ice, rocks, and grass but we got up and over it. On the SW side of Blackmore we produced ECT 28 Q2 then picked our way carefully down through trees and exposed rocks (super variable snow depending on tree cover) into Alex Lowe basin. The winds were absolutely raging and that combined with the super-crust we didn't even consider attempting to summit Alex Lowe Peak (our initial objective) but instead focused on building pimpin' snow shelters to camp in.

About six inches of freshies fell while building our snow caves and after dinner and whisky we snuggled down for the night. Morning brought bluebird skies and a soft layer of "the goods" which we skinned and slayed on low angle stuff around camp. The skin up the Blackmore/Elephant saddle from this side was mostly powder snow with occasional breakable crust. Then we had the wonderful downclimb of the icy grossness on the other side to contend with. The "luge run" back to the truck was pretty fun with the fresh snow though.

Sounds like fun Sam! I would love to see some photos if you had any.

Shot some video - haven't reviewed any of it yet though. I'll let you know if I ended up shooting anything good.

Hey all! just left the bitteroots and now camping on stevens pass in washington latest blog post is about lolo pass

A little preview to wet your whistle...


Click link below.

Skied multiple laps on the E Face of Blackmore on Thur. Despite evidence of major windloading (biggest pillows I've ever seen in the trees below the basin),
we saw no cracking/heard no collapsing and saw no naturals. Dug a pit on the E Face @ 9400' and got good results ECTN24 Q3, finally breaking sluggishly on
small facets 40cm down. Felt comfortable ripping anywhere on the E Face, which we did multiple times.
Stoke photo of Alex Lowe Peak:

Here's some more Alex Lowe stoke. This photo was taken from down in the basin and the East face of Alex Lowe is visible. I will ski this face.