Regional Conditions for Bridgers

A skier triggered this slide on June 11th near Fairy Lake. They were not caught, but it was a good reminder to stay heads up on the snow all year. From message: "...Red is where I triggered it, blue and yellow are the two separate debris piles from it. Nobody was caught, I was the only one involved. It wasn’t a huge slide by any means, but certainly could have run me through some cliffs and buried me."

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"...some wet slides from Tuesday/Wednesday (5/26-5/27) up W Fork Rock Creek." Photo: S. Magro

From (5/17/20): "...WS - ASu - R3 - D2 - I SE face of Middle Basin Peak starting at 10,000' Estimated SZ of 30° Slab depth of about 8". We were out too late in the day and chose to ignore a number of observational warnings. We were lucky and remotely triggered the avalanche below us."

A very large natural wet slab ran on the afternoon of 5/19 at the Yellowstone Club. (Screenshot from the Y.C. Timberline chair webcam)

From obs: "Here are a few snaps from yesterday (5/2/20), looking into the Absaroka from up on Emigrant. Fair bit of smaller, pockety wet slab activity in steep, rocky terrain near the middle/upper transition. I didn't see anything larger than D2 or any activity in true upper elevation terrain." Photo: B. VandenBos

From obs: "Here are a few snaps from yesterday (5/2/20), looking into the Absaroka from up on Emigrant. Fair bit of smaller, pockety wet slab activity in steep, rocky terrain near the middle/upper transition. I didn't see anything larger than D2 or any activity in true upper elevation terrain." Photo: B. VandenBos

From obs (5/3/20): "N facing gulley, probably similar results from the Pine Creek avalanche posted on 4/29. Avalanche appears to be natural and possibly a couple days old. Ran about 400’ wide in the cone and damned up the creek with massive cement-like debris. There were more similar avalanches on N facing aspects the more I traveled. The skinning was isothermic and sloppy as each step fell through the snowpack to the ground"

From obs (5/2/20): "Best guess: LW-U-D2-R2-O Multiple LW avalanche debris fields seen below Bridger Gully (IVO 3 Bears Traverse)" Photo: T. Cannan

From e-mail (5/1/20): "...the mountains are coming unglued with the 4 nights of no freeze and heavy rain.  My party ventured up pine creek to take a look and found this big one that ran either yesterday or last night. 

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From obs (4/26/20): "....a wet slide from a n-ne couloir up mission creek near elephant head in the absarokas between 10-11:30 this morning. Snow did not freeze over last night and was heavily saturated early this morning before the sun rose." Photo: @laura_delray

"Skied up a BB this morning [4/25/20] and noticed the glide crack below the north end of Bridger Gully is opening up." Photo: M. Lavery

Wet slide at Bridger Bowl on Wednesday, 4/22/2020. Photo: K. O'leary

All surfaces except the upper North faces were getting wet and sticky. We observed lots of wet loose avalanches actively happening on SE-E facing slopes. We found some cold buffy snow on north-facing slopes, not amazing skiing. There was one small crown on a steep East facing slope that looked to be from the most recent storm but everything else was loose wet. Small wind slabs from the last snow seemed to be glued down today. Photo: S. Jonas

From IG obs (4/19/20): "Saw quite a few natural wet slides back in Middle Basin over the past two days, April 17-18. Witnessed several break loose naturally after about 2pm on anything from SW to SE slopes." Photo: @joshpelczar

Fresh drifts broke naturally along the ridgeline which became long running wet slides. 4/17/20. Photo: GNFAC

Fresh drifts broke naturally along the ridgeline which became long running wet slides. 4/17/20. Photo: GNFAC

Pinwheels of snow indicate the surface is wet and losing strength. These were observed at Bridger on 4/17/20, caused by a skier crossing above. Photo: A. Crawford

From obs.(4/17/20): "Today while skiing at the Playground in the Bridgers my party triggered a wet slab on an ESE 33 degree slope at 7,700' (HS-ASu-R1-D1-I). No one was caught or injured. We decided to turn around as the sun was roasting the snow at 11:45 a.m., and picked a low angle slope to ski back to the trail. Skier 2 descended and popped out a slab about 10" thick and 50' wide, but the slide was slow moving at first and he was able to ski away. The slide gained momentum pretty quickly and ran powerfully about 250' down the slope." Photo: M. Talty

Two skiers skinning up the North Bowl Road narrowly missed getting hit by a pair of avalanches running well into North Bowl. Remember the North Bowl Road crosses through serious avalanche terrain and is not a good up track. Photo: K Kempt

From IG 4/16/2020 Photo: @patrickgillis

From IG 4/16/2020 Photo: @patrickgillis

From obs. 4/16/20: "Small slide off of banzai into a chute fan. Natural release. Pic before slide 12:43 of slide 12:51" Photo: T. Russell

A natural avalanche in the Apron at Bridger Bowl ran full path. Photo: B Nobel

From obs: "Saw an unintentional ski cut at tower 11 on slushmans lift go 16 inches deep and ran down past tower 3 on lift line today. We had 8 inches from sat/sun and another 8 during the day today." Photo: P. Hinz

Shooting cracks in the new snow at Bridger Bowl on 4/14/2020.

 Photo: O. Moon

From obs (4/12/20): "...pretty sizable debris pile at the bottom of Slashmans ravine. Looks to have run Thursday or Friday out of the south facing terrain lookers right of the ravine proper." Photo: @skiktasam

From obs (4/12/20): "...pretty sizable debris pile at the bottom of Slashmans ravine. Looks to have run Thursday or Friday out of the south facing terrain lookers right of the ravine proper." Photo: @skiktasam

Fro obs 4/12/20: "We noted a [small] avalanche that had been (likely) human triggered just north of 3/4 Rock on A-Route. The slide ran almost all the way to the cat road in the bowl. I found variable conditions on the ridge, from about 4 inches of light density snow, to wind slab up 3ft. thick and punchy..." Photo: M. Standal

Wet slides in South Bowl at Bridger Bowl from the past week. Photo: T. Allen

Fresh wind slabs were triggered around a foot thick in Beehive Basin on Sunday 4/12/20. Photo: @jakobechacon

Fresh wind slabs were triggered around a foot thick in Beehive Basin on Sunday 4/12/20. Photo: @jakobechacon

From IG message (4/10/20): "Huge cornice release on north face of Blackmore today around 11am. North face was not hot yet but I am guessing the rocks on the back side transferred the heat?" Photo: @graeme.emerson

Wet loose slides observed 4/10/20. Photo: @omoon16

From obs (4/8/20): "My partner and I noticed this slide as we summited 10602 at approximately 10:30am, which is when I took the first photo and was able to capture the full runout. After our descent of the peak, we skinned back up to the slide to get a better look (the second photo). The slide appeared approximately a day old, with a crown 1-2 feet deep, on an almost directly north-facing aspect at 10200" elevation. It broke right along the rocks that had heated up in the sun, and was around 200-300 feet at its widest. We did not get close enough to determine which layer failed (suspected wind from the heavy wind-crust in the neighboring area), but the debris at the bottom indicated it was a wet slide." Photo: L. Ippolito

Cornice triggered avalanches in Mundy's Bowl at Bridger Bowl. Unsure if natural or skier triggered from the ridgeline. Observed the morning of 4/5/20. Appear to be dry slab/loose. Photo: T. Gittins

Close up of a crystal from the surface hoar layer buried 2-3 feet deep north of Bridger Bowl and throughout most of the advisory area.

From 4/3/20: "I dug a quick pit at ~7450’ on a protected east 36 degree slope - HS 240cm...ECTP18@175 on 3-6mm preserved surface hoar (photos -1mm grid)... All results repeated identically in a second ECT... Seeing the reactive SH layer I opted out of skiing anything that had a distinct rollover or was steeper..." Photo: Z. Miller

A skier triggered this avalanche on Saddle Peak on Thursday, April 2. No one was caught. It appears to have broken under the new snow. Big avalanches in big terrain are usually unsurvivable.  Photo: GNFAC

A skier triggered this avalanche on Saddle Peak on Thursday, April 2. No one was caught. It appears to have broken under the new snow. Big avalanches in big terrain are usually unsurvivable.  Photo: GNFAC