Trip Planning for Northern Gallatin

as of 5:00 am
Apr 300″ | NA
Apr 29 0″ | NA
Apr 28 5″ | NA
9980′     04/09 at 14:00
59.3℉
NE - 0mph
Gusts 1mph
8100′     06/05 at 06:00
38℉
Depth
Bottom Line: Spring weather can be highly variable and create a mix of avalanche problems to watch out for. Snow conditions and snow stability can change drastically from day to day or hour to hour. Anticipate rapid change and plan accordingly. Plenty of snowfall over the winter with more spring snow to come makes avalanches possible into summer.

Past 5 Days

Mon Apr 17

None
Thu Apr 20

None
Mon Apr 24

None
Fri Apr 28

None
Tue May 2

None

Relevant Photos

Displaying 1 - 40
  • From email: “These pics are from last June 10-11, after the pass reopened on Friday. I was skiing the Gardner headwall at 5:30, solo, when this monster released. Yah. The initial cornice collapse triggered and entrained a secondary slab of varying thickness whose crown is seen in one of the photos.”

  • From obs 5/7/23: "Natural R3-4, D4 ripped out a large chunk of the south face of Wilson during the last warm period I would assume. Debris everywhere and one large boat-sized pile even scoured a path further down than the rest of the debris. Looked to be a mix of wet loose and wet slab release from high up. Alpha angle at the bottom of the debris was 25 degrees" Photo: C. Ellingson

  • Give Big Gallatin Valley is May 4-5. The Friends of the Avalanche Center are participating again this year and thank you for your support. Between 6pm on May 4 through 6pm on May 5 you can support your favorite local non-profits. Donate Here.

  • From Big Sky Ski Patrol: "Temps remained a little cooler than yesterday and generally topped out in the mid 40’s F. That didn’t stop the free water from moving
    and continuing to destabilize the snowpack, primarily on solar aspects below 10,000’. Near full depth to full depth wet loose avalanches continued to naturally release in what was left of the A-Z’s as well as LRT which had not seen any activity yesterday." Photo: BSSP

  • From obs 4/7/23: "Small wind slab triggered by snowmobile. Slope was assessed by group as wind blown before climb.  No one was caught. East facing slope, Storm castle Ridge. Photo one shows trigger point where the Snowmobiler carved hard and set off the slab deeper in the snowpack"

  • From obs 4/7/23: "Small wind slab triggered by snowmobile. Slope was assessed by group as wind blown before climb.  No one was caught. East facing slope, Storm castle Ridge. Photo one shows trigger point where the Snowmobiler carved hard and set off the slab deeper in the snowpack."

     

  • From obs 4/7/23: "Small wind slab triggered by snowmobile. Slope was assessed by group as wind blown before climb.  No one was caught. East facing slope, Storm castle Ridge. Photo one shows trigger point where the Snowmobiler carved hard and set off the slab deeper in the snowpack"
     

     

  • We were snowmobiling up portal creek today near the hidden lakes trailhead and I set off a small slide remotely by riding below a small ridge. The slide was about 3 feet at its crown 30 or 40 feet wide and ran about 40 yards. It just came down to where my track had crossed underneath. Everything was fine and we stayed safe and continued on with our plan and had a nice day.

  • We were snowmobiling up portal creek today near the hidden lakes trailhead and I set off a small slide remotely by riding below a small ridge. The slide was about 3 feet at its crown 30 or 40 feet wide and ran about 40 yards. It just came down to where my track had crossed underneath. Everything was fine and we stayed safe and continued on with our plan and had a nice day.

  • We were snowmobiling up portal creek today near the hidden lakes trailhead and I set off a small slide remotely by riding below a small ridge. The slide was about 3 feet at its crown 30 or 40 feet wide and ran about 40 yards. It just came down to where my track had crossed underneath. Everything was fine and we stayed safe and continued on with our plan and had a nice day. 

  • From obs 3/26/23: "Saw a couple small natural slides breaking in the new snow. The one on the small slope beside the road actually appeared to have broken when a snow bike crossed the top just off the side of the road." Photo: J. Weingarten

  • From obs 3/26/23: "Saw a couple small natural slides breaking in the new snow.... occurred in the afternoon sometime" Photo: J. Weingarten

  • [On 3/25/23]: Skier reported, "Came across debris of a recent skier-triggered slide near the top of Little Ellis in a small, protected, eastern facing gully around 7,500'. Crown was ~3.5-1.5' deep, ~35' wide and it ran ~150'. Ski tracks were observed near the top of the crown and next to a small hole near the surface ~70' from the crown where it looks like someone self extracted. No signal was found with a beacon search and my group felt that the one track from the hole must have been from the same skier as the track near the crown." Photo: R. Beck

  • [On 3/25/23]: Skier reported, "Came across debris of a recent skier-triggered slide near the top of Little Ellis in a small, protected, eastern facing gully around 7,500'. Crown was ~3.5-1.5' deep, ~35' wide and it ran ~150'. Ski tracks were observed near the top of the crown and next to a small hole near the surface ~70' from the crown where it looks like someone self extracted. No signal was found with a beacon search and my group felt that the one track from the hole must have been from the same skier as the track near the crown." Photo: R. Beck

  • Photo: R. Lindsey

  • On 3/23/23 skiers in Hyalite saw this older avalanche on Alex Lowe peak. Photo: W. Casper

  • Photo of deep slab avalanche on Elephant Mtn from above. Photo: W. Casper  3/23/23

  • Saw this very large avalanche in NE face of Elephant this morning (3/23/23). Skiers left flank appears at a distance to be 8-10'. Photo: C. Babineau-Z

  • Large avalanche on Mt. Bole seen by skiers on 3/17/23.

  • We skied the ridge north of Blackmore (Tomahawk Ridge?) traveling between 6800' -9200' on SE-NE aspects.

    On the ridge above, ~9400' on a NE aspect there was a natural avalanche, maybe cornice failure, probably same timeframe as the Divide slides. ran ~600'.

    HS-N-D2-R2-O

    Photo: R. Griffiths

  • I went for a walk up to divide basin today and noticed two slides that occurred on high, steep, north facing slopes last night (Tuesday night) when the wind picked up 

  • While investigating an avalanche that failed on a weak layer of facets buried in January, we notice a new layer that we will be looking for and testing as we move forward. Photo: GNFAC

  • Investigating a recent avalanche on Hyalite Peak. Photo: GNFAC

  • On Buck Ridge today (3/5/23) we found fresh, unstable drifts. This fresh slab was 4-6" deep. Cracking like this is a sign that wind slabs will avalanche on steeper slopes. Photo: GNFAC

  • Skier triggered avalanche on Elephant Mtn. 3/4/23. SS-ASu-R2-D1.5-I

    Vertical Fall: ~700' Distance Traveled: ~1000' Aspect: 15 N Elevation of start zone: 9645'

  • Skier triggered avalanche on Elephant Mtn. 3/4/23. SS-ASu-R2-D1.5-I

    Vertical Fall: ~700' Distance Traveled: ~1000' Aspect: 15 N Elevation of start zone: 9645'

  • Skier triggered avalanche on Elephant Mtn. 3/4/23. SS-ASu-R2-D1.5-I

    Vertical Fall: ~700' Distance Traveled: ~1000' Aspect: 15 N Elevation of start zone: 9645'

  • Skier triggered deep slab avalanche on NE face of Hyalite Peak 3/4/23.

  • Skier triggered deep slab avalanche on NE face of Hyalite Peak 3/4/23.

  • Skier triggered deep slab avalanche on NE face of Hyalite Peak 3/4/23.

  • "Chunk of cornice fell off the top of Arden Peak. Notably the same aspect/elevation as the 2/27 observed natural slide on E face of Mt Bole but the cornice fall did not step down beyond the surface snow." Photo: M. Zia

  • From IG. “I spotted a large crown this morning on the E face of Bole. The crown appeared to be pretty deep, at least a few feet, and propagated quite wide. It also looked like there was a debris path coming down the apron of the E face of Hyalite peak, but I was too far away to know for sure.” N. Sramek

  • From IG: Skiers near Mt. Blackmore on 2/24 saw a large avalanche on the east side of Mt. Blackmore that appeared to have happened in the last 24 hours.

  • From email 2/24/23: "Came across this very large cornice that appeared to have broken naturally sometime in the past 24 hours. Saw a few others that had broken recently throughout our tour, but none as large as this." E. Heiman

  • Low winds/no snow transport when I was up there and the east face had little to no wind effect, probably 16-18in new snow. Saw this slide with about a 8-12in crown and 100ft wide on the north face, didn’t see any other activity aside from some small point releases on really steep east aspects.

    From another party: Saw a sizable avalanche on the north east face of Blackmore, likely broke mid storm and was partly filled in already - estimated 20" deep, 100' wide. Had shooting cracks and collapsing while ascending northeast ridge. Hand pits showed planar results on an 8" harder slab beneath all the blower on top. 

  • We observed a few small crowns on steeper road cuts in Sourdough today, NW and W aspects. 4-8" at crown, 20-40' wide, ~10' vertical. They looked like storm slabs that had run overnight, maybe on a density change in the storm snow. Debris piles were small and covered with 2-3" of new snow. Low consequence, but maybe enough to surprise a kid or a dog. Photos were taken shortly above the 2 mile marker.

  • Was about 80% of the way up to the top of the middle meadow on history rock this morning when we remotely triggered a small avalanche from the skin track.  Slide was just new snow that had fallen within prior 24hrs.  Crown of about 8 inches, 20ish feet wide by 20 feet long.  Face that slid was east facing.  We took this as a sign to reconsider skiing something even as low key as history rock and decided to ski the skin track back.

    [Dropped the pin for this observation exactly where I believe the observation to have occurred.  Took an OnX waypoint while out there to help too.]

  • Went for a ski up the Flanders drainage in Hyalite today. The day was punctuated by light winds and heavy snowfall.

     

    On the skin in, we noted numerous D1 storm slab avalanches about 15cm down in the new snow on many aspects and elevations. Approaching a ridgeline, we experienced a shooting crack that propagated a very small slide in slightly wind affected snow. We dug an ECT on a SE facing aspect at 9000ft. We were unable to get propagation. Snow totals appeared to be higher than forecasted, with 60cm of new snow as of about 12:30. By the time we ripped skins, the area had received an additional 10cm of snow, putting totals around 60-70cm of low density snow on top of a stout melt freeze crust on the aspect we were skiing.
     

    we did not observe any cracking collapsing or wumphing in buried weak layers, nor signs of avalanches on those layers. The new snow had very low SWE.

  • I sunk to the ground on Mt Ellis when I stepped out of my skis. A poor, unsupportable structure is not everywhere, but it certainly was on the ridge. Photo: GNFAC

  • "Found widespread surface hoar up storm castle creek on all sheltered slopes above 7500’." Photo: JR Mooney 

Videos- Northern Gallatin

WebCams


Bozeman Pass, Looking SE

Snowpit Profiles- Northern Gallatin

 

Select a snowpit on the map to view the profile image

Weather Forecast Northern Gallatin

Extended Forecast for

14 Miles SE Gallatin Gateway MT

  • Today

    Today: A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms between 11am and noon, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm after noon.  Increasing clouds, with a high near 61. South wind 6 to 9 mph becoming north northeast in the afternoon.  Chance of precipitation is 70%.

    Slight Chance
    T-storms then
    Showers
    Likely

    High: 61 °F

  • Tonight

    Tonight: A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly before 10pm.  Mostly cloudy, then gradually becoming mostly clear, with a low around 44. East wind around 7 mph becoming west southwest in the evening.

    Chance
    T-storms then
    Partly Cloudy

    Low: 44 °F

  • Tuesday

    Tuesday: Showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm after noon.  Increasing clouds, with a high near 61. South southwest wind 5 to 8 mph becoming north in the afternoon.  Chance of precipitation is 70%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.

    Sunny then
    Showers
    Likely

    High: 61 °F

  • Tuesday
    Night

    Tuesday Night: A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms before midnight.  Mostly cloudy, with a low around 46. North northeast wind 5 to 9 mph becoming south southeast after midnight.

    Chance
    T-storms then
    Partly Cloudy

    Low: 46 °F

  • Wednesday

    Wednesday: Showers and possibly a thunderstorm after noon.  High near 62. Light and variable wind becoming northeast 5 to 9 mph in the afternoon.  Chance of precipitation is 80%.

    Partly Sunny
    then Showers

    High: 62 °F

  • Wednesday
    Night

    Wednesday Night: A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms before midnight.  Mostly cloudy, with a low around 46. East northeast wind 6 to 10 mph becoming south southeast after midnight.

    Chance
    T-storms then
    Mostly Cloudy

    Low: 46 °F

  • Thursday

    Thursday: A chance of showers, then showers and possibly a thunderstorm after noon.  High near 60. South wind 5 to 11 mph becoming northeast in the afternoon.  Chance of precipitation is 90%.

    Chance
    Showers then
    Showers

    High: 60 °F

  • Thursday
    Night

    Thursday Night: Showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm before midnight.  Mostly cloudy, with a low around 45. East wind 8 to 13 mph becoming south after midnight. Winds could gust as high as 18 mph.

    Showers
    Likely then
    Mostly Cloudy

    Low: 45 °F

  • Friday

    Friday: A chance of showers, then showers and possibly a thunderstorm after noon.  Mostly cloudy, with a high near 59.

    Showers

    High: 59 °F

The Last Word

Thank you to everyone that sent in observations, read the advisories, took an avalanche class or donated money, time or gear. Our success is directly related to community support and the Forest Service. Have a safe spring and summer!

 

4 / 28 / 23  <<  
 
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