24-25

I toured Big Creek today in the southern Paradise Valley, taking Donahue Creek trail up off of Big Creek to ski the low angle meadows above. The west face of the first meadow was fairly wind loaded and approximately 80cm deep.
The snowpack appeared to be approximately 20cm of soft powder over 30cm of a wind slab, all sitting on top of another 30cm of fairly loose, course, facets. 
I conducted a compression test, and had a failure at 17 taps where the wind slab collapsed on the loose snow below. I did an extended column next, and recorded a score of ECT16P, with the failure propagating below the top layer of powder within the slab on the facets. 
Prior to filling in the pits, I jumped on my skis approximately 4 feet upslope of them, and the second jump caused the snowpack on the back of the pit to collapse when the slab slid. 

Saw what looked to be a small wind slab or cornice fall on South Siren in Republic Creek. SE facing, 10100 ft. Photo: BPG

Went into the beehive area today to do a bigger jaunt into the alpine and make it around the basins. Dug at 9200’ on an E aspect on the Beehive/Middle ridge and ripped two ECTs. First test result was ECTN12 on the dust layer. Second test yielded an ECTX. We went ahead with our plan to ski some fairly steep terrain throughout the basins, taking it slow, and making surface and visual observations throughout our day confirming our plan. Most of the surface snow was minimally wind affected and skied great. We saw only small sluffs on anything we could see (no slab avalanches). There was some small shooting cracks while setting skinners, but nothing especially concerning. There was evidence of a stubborn older wind slab underneath the newest snow on one of our lines. Overall, great day! 

Went skiing south of Cooke City today near Hayden Creek. No avalanches seen and no signs of instability. Cold temps and light winds from the NW and W all day. 

Temps: Negative single digits to neg. teens F

Today, we traveled up the Deer Creek drainage north of Big Sky. We experienced no cracking or collapsing and saw no recent avalanches. We dug in the snow on a S aspect at 7680' with unremarkable results. We dug again on a NE aspect at 8200' and got an unstable test result (ECTP 28) on surface hoar and near-surface facets buried under a 2' slab (F - 1F+ hardness).

A few keys points from today: 

• Mid to Low-elevation snow exists in many areas that typically do not hold rideable snow during the winter. These zones are typically much shallower and weaker. Avalanche terrain exists at mid to low-elevations too. Assume a shallow, weak snowpack in these areas and easily confirm by digging down to see what is going on underneath your feet. 
• Persistent weak layers are still present and are reactive in snowpits. Surface hoar and near-surface facets exist around 2' deep in the snowpack. These layers do not exist on every slope and were stubborn in snowpit tests, but there is still a possibility of triggering an avalanche within this layer. 
• Wind loaded terrain grows less sensitive by the day but is still where the likelihood of finding the most unstable snow is the highest.  

There are a lot of abnormal, mid to  lower-elevation zones out there holding great snow and riding conditions - just remember that there are still terrain and snowpack features to be on the lookout for and avoided. Step off the skin track, look out for signs of red flags and dig down to see what is going on beneath your feet before committing to ascending or descending steep slopes.