Montana Trees

Riding quality was:

Good

Snow conditions were:

• Deep powder
• Heavy
• Wind affected

We rode:

• Dense trees
• Mellow slopes
• Open trees

We stayed away from:

• Alpine slopes
• Convex slopes
• Steep slopes

The day was:

• Cloudy
• Foggy
• Stormy
• Warm

Avalanche conditions

• Slab avalanches today or yesterday.
• 30cm + of new snow, or significant drifting, or rain in the last 48 hours.
• Whumpfing or drum-like sounds or shooting cracks.
• Rapid temperature rise to near or above 0°C or wet surface snow.

We did a few laps in Montana Trees today. Due to the high avalanche hazard, we stuck to mellow, planar/concave slopes in sparse to dense trees. The ALP was covered with a widespread 10-20cm 4F slab that was getting moist on solar aspects. Given the widespread and stiff nature of the slab in ALP and TL, we noticed very little cracking or whumpfing. Even when ski-cutting unsupported rolls, we got absolutely no reactivity. To note, we did not ski terrain steeper than 35deg. We saw light winds gusting to moderate from the SW today with trace precip.

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We dug a partial profile at 2200m on 20deg, S slope. We found the Jan24 solar crust buried 90cm down. No evidence of SH, except above a higher crust buried 70cm down where we found 3mm SH grains. Easy and moderate sudden planar releases on both our CT down 35cm and 40cm (mostly F+ to 4F snow). 1/4 column propagation at the aforementioned interfaces on the ECT under similar strength taps.