February 10, 2015
It has been unseasonably warm the last 10 or so days. Thursday and Friday hit almost 50 degrees in the valley just after we just received about 2 feet up high. Another colder front just came through lowering the daytime temps in the valley to about 32-34 degrees. This storm was another rain/snow mix in the valley. The snotel sites are not showing much movement, I believe due to the wetter snow and settling. One of my renters was at Blind Bull yesterday and said there was about 4-5 inches of new on the road. It may be possible by the end of the storm it may have picked up 6-8″. I recently I have had many people calling for snow reports wondering if they can still ride? There is plenty of snow!!! (I will summarize below) 8000-10,000 feet is not going to be fluffy, but heavier powder. Be careful, the avalanche danger is considerable. We haven’t had enough cold weather to stabilize the snowpack after the last few storms. All riding below 8000 feet is going to be “spring conditions”. The snow in the Valley settled down to about half as much as we had 2 weeks ago, no bare spots. Plenty to get around, but most roads are bared off. It is a little difficult getting around alpine on a sled without being creative or wearing your skags a bit.
Here is a summary of the snowpack:
Snake River Drainage (entire drainage average) 116%
Blind Bull 20.7 (water content) 68″ 137%
Salt River Summit 9.8 39″ 115%
Spring Creek 21.3 69″ 136%
Willow Creek 20.8 62″ 114%
The long term prediction is for highs close to 40 and clear skies to the end of the weekend. Long term forecast is for a cold front, snow, and Canadian air influencing us next week. I will report after the next significant snow, hopefully early next week.
From Bridger Teton:
GENERAL AVALANCHE ADVISORY
At the mid and upper elevations isolated pockets of new soft slab and older, hard slabs could be human triggered in steep terrain and cliff areas. At the lower elevations areas of isothermal snow present some potential for wet slides to be human triggered in steep terrain.