24-25

Date

Fri, 01/31/2025 - 06:35

Activity

Skiing

Toured out of Pine Creek yesterday and up to around 9000ft. We found large surface hoar crystals around the creek and smaller NSF in most covered areas. In steeper, north-facing terrain, we found a fairly uniform snowpack in areas that had been seeing some wind and surprisingly good surface conditions for skiing. We found a few feet of sugar snow near the ridge line with large faceted crystals lower in the snowpack, restricted to mostly sheltered areas. While traveling, we saw no signs of instability except some wet slides from the past few warm days. However, the snowpack around Pine Creek is much thinner than the rest of the forecast area and is showing significantly more signs of faceting, especially in sheltered areas.

Region

Out of Advisory Area

Location (from list)

Pine Creek

Observer Name

Jay Alford

GNFAC Avalanche Forecast for Fri Jan 31, 2025

Snowpack and Avalanche Discussion

Avalanche conditions are generally safe today. Still, there are some things to watch out for.

The first thing to watch out for is old wind drifts. Mostly these will be well bonded after a week of warm temperatures, but be alert in case you find someplace where they aren’t. A report yesterday of a recent Wind Slab avalanche on Woodward Mtn. that broke 1-2 ft deep and 250 ft wide shows that we can’t totally write off the possibility of triggering one of these slides (<a href="https://www.mtavalanche.com/node/33914"><…;).

Wet snow concerns will be minimal today with generally a good refreeze overnight and clouds keeping melting in check today. But, there are places where the air temperatures stayed above freezing overnight so watch out for Wet Loose avalanches if you find a snowpack that hasn’t entirely refrozen (<a href="https://www.mtavalanche.com/images/25/point-release-avalanche-south-slo… of Wet Looses yesterday</a>).

Snowfall will begin this afternoon. We don’t expect much to accumulate before nightfall, but if it comes in early and heavier than expected - watch out for newly forming drifts. The new snow will fall onto a variety of old snow surfaces, including some very weak snow, so even thin drifts may be quite reactive (<a href="https://youtu.be/SqfcVtQ4uxY?feature=shared"><s… video</a>).

With snow and strong winds expected through the weekend and into next week, expect the avalanche danger to rise. The more it snows and blows, the more rapidly the danger will rise.

For today, the avalanche danger is LOW.

Read more about GNFAC Avalanche Forecast for Fri Jan 31, 2025

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Wind Slab avalanche on Woodward Mtn.

Taylor Fork

Southern Madison

1/28/2025

Code

HS-N-R2-D2

Aspect

Latitude

45.06070

Longitude

-111.27200

Notes

Wind slab avalanche on Woodward Mountain, observed on 1/30. Avalanche appeared recent but date of slide is estimated.

From email: "Today I drove down Taylor fork road, with the thought of potentially getting up on woodward mtn, until I saw a crown on the NE
Face of its northern summit, basically wall to wall near the top of the slide path. There were a couple other sled tracks that also went to the end of the road, so I figured maybe it was pretty recent, as I didn’t hear about it in the advisory. Concerning because it appears to have propagated maybe 250ft across, while maybe only 1-2 ft deep"

Number of slides

Number caught

Number buried

Avalanche Type

Hard slab avalanche

Trigger

Natural trigger

R size

D size