20-21

While ski touring in the Hyalite Creek Drainage today, my ski partner and I both, at separate times of the day, remote triggered sudden collapses. Each time, we felt the snow collapse underneath our feet, and then heard and felt a deep "whumph". The noise came from the North of us both times, where the slope was slightly steeper (still below about 28 degrees-- not colored with "slope angle shading" layer on caltopo. The danger was rated as "moderate" in the Northern Gallatins today, so we were both extremely surprised by these events.

I am also wondering if you have any women on your team, or if you are just "The Avalanche Guys"?

Thanks so much for all that you do.

ALERT! THE GREAT BACON RIND SLIDE OF 2021! Photos attached!
I found a small piece of this mostly low angle slope to have avalanched, probably from a day or two ago, a handful of older tracks were near it. I measure most of this slope around 26-28 degrees, I always wonder if there is enough 30+ slope angle to pull out into lower angle terrain here, I guess for now there isn’t. This is on the farthest south part of the top meadow.

An epic amount of whumphs up there, I stopped counting after I got to 10 on my second switch back. Our best one knocked snow out of a tree 100’ away. It feels like remote triggering is a very real possibility.

Skies were more overcast than expected. While it never went blue, the sun poked out a little in the afternoon. Cold temps, 0F in the AM, warmed to 24F in the PM. 5-6mm surface hoar everywhere, it made for good fast skiing!

Thanks for everything you guys do!
Spencer

7400 ft east aspect, 75cm snowpack. ECPT 12 full propagation. Two test performed, same results. Also dug a pit at 6800 ft NE aspect, ECPT 7 full propagation. Turned around. Surface hoar up to 3/4”, bad looks for future

We were heading for Ernie Miller Ridge, but got deterred by our group hearing MORE COLLAPSES AND SETTLEMENTS THAN I'VE EVER HEARD IN A SINGLE TRIP, in over 23 years of backcountry skiing. Some in the open, some in the woods. Some small, some HUGE and FAR running. Some heard by the person in front, some by the 4th in our party, some where we were following an old skin track, some where we were in fresh snow. As a group we probably heard 25 over the course of the day.

We didn't dig any formal pits, as the snow was telling us all we needed to know.

Stay safe out there. Thanks

On our way out to fairy lake we stopped in the open meadow just before the campground and noticed a sizeable natural avalanche on a northfacing slope that appeared to have broken on the layer of sugary facets on the ground. From our perspective it appeared to have happened a few days ago likely after the loading event midweek.