Yellowstone Ski Tours

No red flags, good test results and no observed Av. (visibility not great). BUT low snowpack, only 110cm and pockets (to 9,250 ft. elv) of full-depth facets.

Great looking snowpack in this location. Fairly widespread wind effect above 9700' from moderate to strong SWerly winds Jan. 14-16. About 10 cms of light snow on top of that wind effect. No collapsing. Minor cracking in exposed, ridgeline locations.

Dug this snowpit on belay.

The surface snow had widespread wind effect above 9500'.

Localized wind effect, and drifts that were pencil hard and were sensitive to the weight of a skier, in areas along the NE ridge (from recent northerly winds). These areas did not appear to be widespread. One natural avalanche observed on an upper elevation east/ NE aspect near by, just lookers left of the Fin. The avalanche appeared to have started from a cornice fall.

We observed one recent slab avalanche (possibly 4 days old) on an adjacent SE aspect at 8600'. The crown looked to be about 15m wide and 50cms deep, on what appeared to be a non wind loaded slope.