Goin' Fast

The FAC teamed up with the USGS/Glacier Park Avalanche Forecasting Program today to assess the snowpack along the Going to the Sun Road.

• We documented a few very large wet slab avalanches that ran on north aspects starting around 7000'. We estimated that they may have failed on Friday (4/5) during the afternoon rain event. We saw recent, smaller loose wet releases, opening glide cracks, and wet slab crowns on south aspects across the canyon originating at about 6000' - but there was not much snow on the slopes under these southerly slides.
• We bushwhacked and finally skinned up a true north-facing avalanche path over recent D.5 to D1.5 loose wet avalanche debris that ran down from middle elevations.
• The snowpack below about 5000' is very shallow and isothermal with poor coverage. Weak refreezes, about an inch thick, and recent rain have left the snowpack at middle elevations moist to wet under a series of melt-freeze crusts at and near the surface. It didn't take much solar input to break down the surface on north aspects by early afternoon. Ski cuts on steep rollovers with shallow snow cover had no results.
• We carefully skied slopes steeper than 35 degrees through icy crusts, punchy wet snow, and 1 or 2 descent corn turns on lower angled sections.