Bozeman Thread 2012/2013

[nickstayner]

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!

[generalyen]

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

[boppingshoe]

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.

[mtsurfr]

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

[greg.doctor]

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.

[nickstayner]

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

[MT]

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!

[boppingshoe]

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.

[samh]

@boppingshoe wrote:

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.

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samh.net

[nickstayner]

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.

[samh]

@nickstayner wrote:

We rode on and around Divide Peak on Saturday.

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

@nickstayner wrote:

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.

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

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samh.net

[samh]

Correction: this morning’s report stated it as, “On Saturday evening skiers triggered an avalanche on Alex Lowe Peak, located southwest of Mt. Blackmore.”

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samh.net

[boppingshoe]

didn’t get the same stable results like last week at high elevation (10,000 ft) in Hyalite. went back to the same area (south of reservoir) from couple days ago and tried another spot to dig a snow pit. about 60cm of new snow (now consolidated) on top of 25cm of rotten facet. ECTP 17 on NE facing at 7500 ft. also felt a lot of collapsing while touring around. Still, didn’t see any slides nor trigger any slides. So… I don’t know, I guess I agree with the MT avy guys, there’s still potentials to get in trouble depends where you are. play safe.

[nickstayner]

Sam- I didn’t see your cave. I didn’t see much of anything up there though… visibility was awful until about 3PM when it lifted for a minute. Where is it? That would be a fun spot to have a cave, along with all the other mini basins above the main fork!

[samh]

@nickstayner wrote:

Sam- I didn’t see your cave. I didn’t see much of anything up there though… visibility was awful until about 3PM when it lifted for a minute. Where is it? That would be a fun spot to have a cave, along with all the other mini basins above the main fork!

When you skin into the basin from the main Hyalite trail you cross that wide open meadow. In the middle of that meadow is a large rock covered with snow. From that rock look up the basin in a generally Westward direction toward a clump of trees that sit at the bottom of a small slope. In those trees is a snow cave large enough for about four people and there’s still snow that can be dug out to enlarge it.

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samh.net

[splittilps]

We got an ECTP4 at a location* in the southern half of the Absorokas on Saturday. It was on a southerly aspect at about 9k feet. We were surprised to see it break not at the interface of the old/new snow but about a foot off the ground in some facets that had weakened since we last rode the area 2 weeks prior. On the opposite side of the ridge the snowpack looked similar but we were getting ECTs around 25. We also got some collapsing on a west facing slope/facet farm that scared the heck out of us. So keep your guard up.

* about 1,500′ vert above this little shangri-la, hence the secrecy.

[nickstayner]

Nice to hear a report from the A/B. Snow depths/depths of slab would be good to note in above obs. Re: need for secrecy- it’s not like anyone rides over there anyway 🙂

[samh]

My buddy Jon met up with the guy who’s making a name for himself as the “human powered mountaineer” to bike tour from BZN over to the T-Roots for a bid on Hollowtop. They’re riding there today, camping, skiing tomorrow, and hopefully riding to Norris for a soak and a camping, and then heading back to BZN Sunday. Pretty cool trip if I do say so myself. Give ’em a wave if you happen to be out that way this weekend and see ’em.

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samh.net

[splittilps]

@nickstayner wrote:

Nice to hear a report from the A/B. Snow depths/depths of slab would be good to note in above obs.

I honestly don’t pay that close attention to depths. There’s guys who get paid to do that and my philosphy is similar to avoiding deer while driving – once I see that an animal is in danger of jumping in front of me, I don’t need to know if it’s a white tail or a muley. But, going from a vague memory, total depth was about 4 feet, with maybe 2 feet of snow from recent storms, and the failure was about 1 foot above the ground.

@nickstayner wrote:

Re: need for secrecy- it’s not like anyone rides over there anyway 🙂

True enough but “Chateau Joe” is in place for the whole winter which isn’t exactly legal.

[nordicbordn]

@splittilps wrote:

I honestly don’t pay that close attention to depths.

interesting philosophy :scratch: