20-21

The Upper Yellowstone Snowmobile Club worked with the Friends of GNFAC to install two new Beacon Checkers near Cooke City. One is located on the north edge of town as you leave on Miller Rd. The second is at the intersection of Lulu Pas Road and the road to Round Lake. Photo (and assembly): B. Zavora

**Please note, these checkers are not a substitute for formal daily transceiver checks with your entire group. They are there as a reminder. It is important to ensure all of your group member's transceivers have full batteries, and their transmit and search functions work properly.

The Upper Yellowstone Snowmobile Club worked with the Friends of GNFAC to install two new Beacon Checkers near Cooke City. One is located on the north edge of town as you leave on Miller Rd. The second is at the intersection of Lulu Pas Road and the road to Round Lake.

**Please note, these checkers are not a substitute for formal daily transceiver checks with your entire group. They are there as a reminder. It is important to ensure all of your group member's transceivers have full batteries, and their transmit and search functions work properly. Photo (and assembly): B. Zavora

Observed 24" of snow in leeward aspects at an elevation of 7700'. West faces above 7000' appeared scoured and bare to the ground, limited coverage. In sheltered south facing areas where snow hadn't been scoured, a stout breakable crust existed near the surface. Old snow snow was faceted to the ground, ski poles easily penetrating dirt. Below 7000' skiing was not possible due to low coverage, relegating our party to skin on the summer trailhead in and out of Hellroaring.

I "skied" at Telemark Meadows this morning (Dec 17). Similar observation as the person who was at Fawn Pass/ Big Horn yesterday. I had skied there about 10 days ago in the middle of high pressure and found what snow was present, while faceted and with surface hoar on the top, was skiable. Today, those 12" or so of facets on the ground have no cohesion (they did 10 days ago - hence being able to ski without hitting the ground). Now there is 12-18" of fairly high moisture content snow on the facets so skiing down was more like trenching down. On several steeper slopes there, there was considerable collapsing and shooting cracks but no whumpfing. I am sure these would have slid if the slope angle was steep enough.

Saw a car at one of the Bacon Rind turnouts but visually those trees still look very thin and then once in the meadows, the skiing can't be much different than Telemark.

Road cut south facing slope of 42 degrees, triggered intentionally by a guide, shows about 12 inches of windblown soft slab on top of a faceted layer (in this case more extreme due to aspect and inclination toward the sun) but was triggered only by chopping a hand into the snow a few times. This same faceted layer (the uppermost layer of a thick faceted layer of 1-2 fee) exists throughout the snowpack.

Also, the bottom-most layers of snow are very faceted and conditions have not occurred yet to set the snow for a base. Walking around your feet go right to the ground even in areas where snow is 2+ feet deep. There are many rock/tree hazards lurking under the soft snow because of this, two people in our group damaged their a-arms.

Lower elevation plateau with low snow accumulation due to consistent wind-scouring, consists of about a foot of faceted snow with a dense wind-blown slab on top.