23-24

Spent the last few days traveling around the Cooke City Area.  New to the area so this is just some general notes/obs of things we saw that seemed interesting:

• weak basal facets/depth hoar widespread across all aspects and elevations travelled
• no cracking or collapsing noted 
• anywhere from 1-5" of new snow in the last few days. Surface conditions quite a mixed bag and tricky to predict what would be crusted or not I think due to how the sun has popped out at random times and locations in between snow squalls. 
• pits were dug in 2 locations (see images) -
  • S aspect on Henderson, many clean CT (Q1/SC) results and ECTP results on both a mid pack facets and basal depth hoar, even though depth hoar was wet (could make a snowball). These test results were repeatable in 2 pits dug nearby each other in same location representing both shallow (~160cm) and deep (~200cm) spots. Video of this pit linked. 
  • W Aspect Republic Crk/Woody Ridge - same basal facets/depth hoar noted, but not reactive to ECT (ECTX result), even when top half of snowpack was removed.  This is near the collapse ob from another party the other day so points to the spatial variability - no result in our pit but a reactive collapse nearby from another party noted. 
• Widespread crowns visible from previous cycle almost everywhere you could imagine, especially on easterly aspects. Don't think we saw anything that hadn't been reported, but must have been a very impressive cycle. One photo attached is of a shallow SE aspect slide seen in Pilot Crk drainage. I thought interesting because of how shallow the snowpack seemed there. 

Skiers triggered this small windslab while skinning near a steeprollover at the top of an East facing slope above Zimmer Creek. Crown was ~20 ft wide and ran a similar distance. 2"-10" at the deepest. Photo: G. Roe

Skiers in Frazier Basin triggered several small wind slabs and saw widespread cracking on NW-facing terrain. Photo: C. Bayles

Triggered this small windslab while skinning near a steeprollover at the top of an East facing slope above Zimmer Creek. Crown was ~20 ft wide and ran a similar distance. 2"-10" at the deepest. 

We toured over south Bacon Rind and into Ernie Miller Ridge today. The weather was variable, alternating between periods of calm winds and warm sun, and periods of heavy cloud cover, snow, and high winds. At the summit winds were strong out of the SW, but previous wind deposits further down pointed towards recent Northerly winds. These were strong enough to scour snow off the crust, and create drifts up to a foot deep. The sun was also affecting the snow surface, rapidly warming and wetting the snow above the crust. This wet snow was not bonding well to the crust. Some cold snow remained and made for good skiing.

We took the variability of the snowpack and the risks of a consequential slide into account and traveled through moderate terrain, avoiding excessive exposure.