Trip Planning for Cooke City Area

Noticed this natural avalanche on 12/8. East facing slope, ~9500 feet, Hayden Creek above Ripcurl area. Photo: J. Mundt

Snowpack on Henderson Bench on NE facing slope

Wet Loose avalanche at Lulu on South facing slope

Old wind slab avalanche on Henderson that likely failed on old facets near the ground after heavy wind loading. NE facing at about 10,100 ft.

1cm surf hoar at Lulu

"At 9410ft, NNW aspect, 10 degree slope, we found HS 75cm. The general structure seems right side up. There are facets at the bottom 20cm or so, but they are wet, and seem to be rounding. An ECT gave us ECTN20 at 40cm down." Photo: N. Mattes 

WE facing snow at 8100 ft Cabin Ck

SE facing snow Cabin Creek

N facing snow Cabin Creek, 9000 ft

Big Sky Ski Patrol triggered this avalanche during mitigation work in The Wave on 11/26/24... "2-3' deep on an ice crust just above the ground with a 2# shot in the Upper rodeo. Volume was limited as most of the snow was loaded just underneath the cornice, but still produced a sizeable size 2... Other paths in the Lenin region ran meaty wind slabs, full track with no significant step downs." Photo: BSSP

Cracking on old, faceted, October snow hundreds of feet long. North facing near treeline. Photo: BSSP

Intentional, human-triggered avalanche by a ski patrol breaking at the ground on a north facing slope near treeline. Photo: BSSP

View looking south towards the Pyramid. Photo: J. Negri

Photo: J. Negri

Evidence of cross loading on Sheep Mountain. Photo: J. Negri

Snowpit at Bridger Bowl on 11/5. Photo: B. VandenBos

From e-mail: "Photo attached from near top of hyalite peak, 11/2. Cracking in recent hard wind slab, I had to really jump hard to make this. Walked on many other hard slabs that were well bonded. Highly variable snowpack. I think you'd be most likely to get into trouble by popping out a small hard slab pocket like this and getting magic carpeted into some thinly covered terrain." Photo: B. VandenBos

Screenshots of webcams throughout the forecast area show new snow and snow cover on November 1.

From obs: "1-3 mm faceting in front of the Montage. Clear skys and mid 20 temps"

On October 17, rain turned to snow and blanketed the mountains of southwest Montana with a fresh coat of snow. Photo: Yellowstone Club Webcam

On October 17, rain turned to snow and blanketed the mountains of southwest Montana with a fresh coat of snow. Photo: Bridger Bowl Webcams

The 26th annual fundraiser for the Friends of the GNFAC is October 25 at the Emerson Cultural Center. More info and tickets at: https://events.eventgroove.com/event/Powder-Blast-2024-101627