Professional Observation - Spyder Bowl, Swan Range

Location Name: 
Professional Observation - Spyder Bowl, Swan Range
Region: 
Swan Range - West Side (Flathead Valley access)
Date and time of observation: 
Mon, 02/27/2017 - 11:23
Location Map: 

Red Flags: 
Recent loading by new snow, wind, or rain
Obvious avalanche path
Terrain Trap
Observation made by: Professional Observer
Snowpit Observations
More detailed information about the snowpack: 

Today we skiied in the Spyder Bowl country.  Conditions were fantastic with an abundance of light, dry new snow and no evidence of recent wind.

We dug several pits.  Our first pit was dug at 6600 ft on a NW aspect near the ridgeline.  We found 20 cm of super light new snow on top of 60 cm of slightly denser snow.  The Feb crusts are still very visible, however, they were unreactive in our tests.  We had an ECTN 26 and CT 24, Q3 both 95 cm down(see photo).  The weakness seemed to be between the two storm slabs.  This looked to be a weak bond between the snow we had over the weekend and the storm from earlier last week. 

We dug another pit on an East aspect on the other side of the ridge.  We chose this spot to look for some buried surface hoar.  Low and behold we were able to find a layer of very small (1-2mm) buried surface hoar.  This was 50 cm down and were able to get a fracture during a CT test (CT 14, Q2). 

On our ski down we noticed ample amounts of sluff and the lower elevations were producing lots of small point release avalanches approx. 6 inches deep. 

Snowpit or crown profile photo or graph: 
Activity: 
Snowboarding