Trip Planning for Southern Madison

New snow was blown into thick drifts that can be triggered by skiers or riders. Cracking like this is a sign that drifts are unstable and could slide on steeper slopes. Photo: GNFAC

From obs (12/5/21): "Went poking around in the Taylor Hilgard today looking for snow. As expected, found a thin and faceted snowpack at lower elevations. Snowpack improved considerably above 8500', often .5-1m. I dug a quick pit to the ground on a N-NE facing slope at around 9300'. Pit measuded 1.1m, and to my surprise consisted of a relatively compacted and consolidated snowpack, almost entirely 4f hardness. I was expecting to find layers of facets near the base of the snowpack, and between crusts in the middle, but did not."

Photo: L. Heine

From email (12/5/21) : "Small avalanche triggered while approaching ice climb in East fork of Hyalite basin. 

Another D1 natural avalanche was observed later in the day similar aspect/elevation

NE @7600’
SS-AFu-D0.5-I"

Photo: A. Schoening

Skiers on Mount Blackmore observed cracking within the freshly wind-loaded snow on a southeast-facing slope just below the ridge (11/24/21). Photo: J Schack

From e-mail 11/7/21: "...Once in airplane bowl we saw multiple large slides that ran last night, syn-storm. Most of which came down from the East face of Sac. A few 200-300’ wide and running the length of the bowl.,,, attached is a grainy cell phone pic of the slides in Airplane Bowl." -Anonymous.

From email 11/4/21: "...noticed two small wet loose avalanches in the east facing bowl between Pomp and Hardscrabble Peaks." Photo: H. Darby

From e-mail 11/4/21: "Hiking up in the Bridger Range from Sacagawea Pass and noticed no faceting of the current snowpack. The snow near the pass and on the ridge is very wind affected as is to be expected and dropping into the bowl on the east side of the Pass the snowpack there has a distinct sun crust. Dug around a little bit at 8600 ft on a NE aspect and found a sun crust of about two inches with what felt like rounded grains below that. Even in the direct sun, the crust was taking a long time to rewarm and was pretty slippery..." Photo: H. Darby