Remote Triggered Avalanche Near Woody Creek, Cooke City

Observed extremely unstable avalanche conditions while ski touring in the Woody Creek Drainage south of Cooke City for the past 4 days. While traveling through the valley floor, I noted whumphing, collapsing, and cracking in the snowpack. I was able to trigger small slides on steeper test slopes just above creek beds from 50-60 feet away. I noted several larger avalanches up high, on all aspects. We played it safe and stuck to skiing and traveling through slopes under 25 degrees and limited our exposure time under large avalanche paths.

While skiing a zone called "ollies woods", a southern aspect that's relatively low angle, we noted widespread loud whumphing of the snowpack in the trees. I Spent some time traversing around the tree'd face on the way down to my group, traveling far right to a sub-ridge where the aspect changed to east, the terrain became more open, and slope angle became steeper. I felt a large whumph, paused, and turned around descending the rest of the southern aspect to the valley bottom.

Once back to the valley bottom, I saw a recent avalanche had slid just below where I was standing earlier on the sub-ridge. Looking from a far, the crown looked about 10" - 15" deep, 60'-100' wide, and fractured on a layer of facets. The slope angle was 31 degrees and at 9100ft elevation. See photo, x marks my relative location when I heard the "whumph"

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