Public Field Report
Observation Details
Observation Date:
April 6, 2023Submitted:
April 7, 2023Zone or Region:
OtherActivity:
Snowmobiling/SnowbikingLocation:
Meadow Lake in the Lemhi RangeObserved Avalanches
Did you observe any avalanches?
YesAvalanche Type:
Hard SlabSize:
Size 3: Could bury and destroy a car, damage a truck, destroy a wood frame house, or break a few treesElevation:
3 avalanches at 10,000 ft 1 at 9,000Aspect:
NEComments:
Out of the 3 avalanches at 10,000 ft one was very large across the NE facing ridge line, and 2 were SE facing aspects not as large but still 3 as we saw a few broken trees. The avalanche at 9,000 feet was NW facing and size 2. We did trigger a lot of fracturing banging on the cut banks.Signs of Unstable Snow
Did you see shooting cracks?
Yes, IsolatedDid you experience collapsing or whumpfing?
Yes, IsolatedObservations
On our way to upper elevations down low 7-9,000 ft range we had a very hard layer collapsing about 20" thick on top of the snowpack. In this slab was about 8" of consolidated snow on top an ice layer about 1" think and another 8-10" of very consolidated snow sitting on top of many feet of faceted sugar snow. hitting the high banks of the road we could trigger shooting cracks and the top layer breaking and sliding back into our tracks. Once we started to see this we ran into our first avalanche probably about a week old. Not much new snow on it. It had come down through trees. It was a smaller avy. About a mile further up we ran into a larger avalanche that was size 3, it had also come down through trees. Once we reached the lake and got above it we saw two very large avalanches. The largest was probably several hundred feet just below the ridge line NE facing wind loaded on small trees, steep 40 degree face and rock. Very wide deep debri field. The fourth slide was size 3 smaller not wind loaded and did break some trees and was a bit longer slide only maybe 75 ft wide but moved a lot of snow. Very neat slide as it came down hit a small ridge banked back into another small drainage. All the slide appeared to be about the same age, about a week as there was not much snow on the debri fields and you could see the avy snow balled up.
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