Finger Licking Good

Another day trying to find good snow and stay out of trouble.

• From 4800'-6400' we traveled uphill through sheltered northerlies.
• In hand pits, with found facets capping the crust about a foot beneath the surface, but the upper foot of snow didn't seem to have the cohesiveness of a slab. This was less true in intermittent openings in the forest where the upper snow is 4F-1F. We observed no audible collapses or cracking during our travels below 6400'.
• At 6400' we shifted our direction and began an ascent of west facing terrain up to 6800'.
• Minor cracking observed above 6400'
• We dug a pit at 6500'. Pit graph attached
  • HS 430cm
  • Soft Slab (4F-1F) 18 inches thick interfaced by facets on a very thin melt freeze crust.
  • Test Results: ECTN21 @404, CT21 Q2 @404
• Above our pit, wind scouring of the snow surface increased dramatically. and around 6600 the snow surface was capped by a thin breakable rime crust.
• At our high point, we observed a recent Wind Slab Avalanche on a steep east facing start zone. (Picture attached and avalanche tab) This failure likely occured late in the day 2/4 or early in the morning 2/5 when upper elevation winds were strongest at the tail end of the loading event.
• We skiied a west facing slope up to 35 degrees without any signs of instability.
• After this run we shifted directions again and began ascending sheltered northerlies up to 6800'. The snow surface on N-NE was mostly unconsolidated.
• No collapsing or cracking observed on ascent of upper elevation northerlies
• Fantastic views of the surrounding peaks. Enjoyed mostly light ridgetop winds and spent some time inspecting for avalanches. Nothing new to report. Only noticed the DPS near Northern/Grant that had been reported already on 1-29-2022. Shared a new photo of this slide, with a perspective showing a litte more of its extent.
• We observed significant flagging and blowing snow in the afteroon, mostly confined to peaks closer to the Flathead Crest. Highpoints closer to the river valley were not showing as much signs of blowing snow (Paola, Disbrow, etc.) Tunnel ridge Wind station reflects this information accurately. The photo that I attached of the wind station was taken around 3:00pm and was recording 4mph 14gust. At the same time that nearby peaks closer to the crest were likely experiencing 20-40mph winds.
• We skied two laps on sheltered NE Facing slopes up to 35 degrees without signs of instability.