11-12

Saddle Peak slid naturally today.  Weak snow underlying the new snow ( 1+ feet) created unstable conditions.  Photo: Pat Clayton

Eric Knoff triggered this path in Miller Creek outside Cooke City remotely.  The new snow (3 feet) was stressing many slopes to the point of failure.  Photo: GNFAC

This natural avalanche in Sheep Creek outside Cooke City ran over a thousand feet.  It was south facing, but a few north facing slides avalanched too.  Collapsing and cracking were noted throughout the day.  Photo: Beau Fredlund

This slide was triggered at the same time as several others while hiking along a ridge.  We were about 800 ft away from this part of the slide.  Remotely triggered avalanches like this one are a sign of very unstable conditions.  It broke about 1-1.5 ft deep and ran about 1000 ft vertical.  Photo: GNFAC

Strong winds transported snow today (Sat.) in the Lionhead area near West Yellowstone.  This wind loading will keep many slopes unstable.  Photo: GNFAC

The small photo on the left was a small avalanche triggered remotely which is a prime indication of unstable conditions.  The natural avalanche in the photo on the right was spotted later in the same area.  In the past 72 hours, the Cooke City area has received 4inches of SWE (about 4ft of snow).  Photo: B. Fredlund

Skiers remotely triggered this avalanche from 100 feet away in the southern Madison Range near Quake Lake.  They also got cracks to shoot 50-75 feet away.  New snow fell onto a very weak snowpack over our southern mountains.  This slide was 12" deep, 75 feet wide and ran 100 feet downhill.  They wrote, "Called it a day and headed home after that." Photo: Anon