Avalanches and calm wind in Bridgers

With decent visibility we drove up Bridger canyon to Battle Ridge to look for recent avalanches. The most noteworthy was a slab 500'+ wide, 2'+ deep in Argentina Bowl (photo), and there was an R1-R2 sized debris pile below the Saddle Peak cliffs, but clouds obscured the top of Saddle. There were a few short, small wind slabs that broke along the ridgeline north of Bridger Peak. We also saw a 150' wide storm slab in Truman Gulch (photo).

We looked at the snowpack on the west side of the range in Truman Gulch. In four snowpits HS was 70cm (W, 8200'), 112cm (SW, 8400'), 135cm (NW, 8000') and 140cm (W, 8500'). The two deepest pits had ECTP28 on facets (2mm) 40cm above the ground. The other two had poor structure and soft weak snow in the bottom 30-40cm, but did not propagate in tests. Overall, the snow structure is poor and not trustworthy on the west side of the Bridgers. With more loading we could see big avalanches, whether it's this week, later this month or later in the season, and currently it seems possible a person could trigger a persistent slab avalanche here.

On the ramp there was evidence of yesterday's wind in the form of wind slabs that broke and their debris subsequently drifted over. Today wind was calm to light, and there is plenty of snow to transport if the winds do pick up. A few hours of moderate wind could easily form fresh wind slabs. Snow was starting to fall lightly in the late afternoon.