Observation Date: 03/18/2018

Route/Location:
Gash Point, Central Bitterroot

Weather:

Wind:

New Snow:

Avalanche Activity:

Other Comments:
Toured up Gash to ski some of this new storm snow. Road was passable to lower TH with high clearance 4×4 (no chains). Can still ski/skin from lower TH. We toured up to skier’s gash, and took a few laps on mellow low angle terrain, skiing all aspects throughout the day.

Winds were gusting out of the W/SW up to 30 mph, clearly moving snow and filling our skin track between laps. We found 30-50cm of new snow sitting on the crust that developed during last week’s high pressure system. The snow stayed light and dry throughout the day and didn’t appear to be stiffining into a hard slab. We didn’t find any instabilities in our pit on a North Aspect @8000′, no propagation in our ECT. However, we saw multiple natural loose snow avalanches on all aspects. We consistently triggered small sloughy slides on terrain 30 degrees+ throughout the day, and managed our terrain accordingly.

Observer: Erik McLaury