US Rocky Mtn Conditions Updates 2012 season....

[jmom800x]

Christmas at Ten Mile

Jacob,

Tell Rick that Keith, The Arctic Cat Guy, is going to take him up on that backup sled. I'm sure his brandnew Highcountry will break down by the second day or he'll be tired of digging it out every 20 feet.

Love the Horns on the helmet!!

Have a great Christmas. Looks like you guys already got your Xmas present early.

Barry (Illinois gang)

Thanks, Looking forward to April.
It is always early Xmas in the Snowys.
Christmas Tree Video From Ten Mile

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEjC2VlVVPk

 

[jmom800x]

Cooke City, Montana January Update, with the Flatlanders from MomsMotorSports

Cooke City, Montana at Bear Claw Bobs, The Bear Claw Bakery and Super 8....Always great :happydance

This weeks update, January 8th-13th.
After the 34 hour road trip, 23 sleds unloaded fast at 1 a.m. Then 17 Flatlanders from MomsMotorSports.Com hit the hills in Cooke today. There is snow out here. We dropped Daisey and played in the valley all afternoon. 17 sleds and no carnage so far. There seems to be a decent base building in some areas. Just like most of the Rocky Region there is a load of sugar snow on the hills under the crust.
Here are a couple of still shots, video update to come.....

 

[polarisrider1]

Cooke City, Montana at Bear Claw Bobs, The Bear Claw Bakery and Super 8....Always great :happydance

This weeks update, January 8th-13th.
After the 34 hour road trip, 23 sleds unloaded fast at 1 a.m. Then 17 Flatlanders from MomsMotorSports.Com hit the hills in Cooke today. There is snow out here. We dropped Daisey and played in the valley all afternoon. 17 sleds and no carnage so far. There seems to be a decent base building in some areas. Just like most of the Rocky Region there is a load of sugar snow on the hills under the crust.
Here are a couple of still shots, video update to come.....

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Thank you Jacob. Keep the reports coming.

 

[jmom800x]

Cooke City Flatlanders Update

January 8th Ride

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6TLGSILAlk

 

[techsledder]

January 8th Ride

Nice! So what "award of the day" do you get for getting your foot/boot stuck in the track?!?

 

[winterrules03]

Rob,

You would think they would put you on something other than those hungry cats. Now they are trying to eat your gear.. Be careful out there and feed that cat before you go out riding.

Barry

 

[polarisrider1]

Nice! So what "award of the day" do you get for getting your foot/boot stuck in the track?!?

That was Rob the camera man. You would be amazed at what he gets himself into. 11 more days and I will be out there riding with some of you lucky guys who get to turn and burn right back out!

 

[jmom800x]

Cooke City, January 9th Update.
No fresh snow today but the forecast is calling for some soon :happydance
We hit two areas today between our groups. A few went to 'top'. It is sketchy getting there but, that is where the untracked powder is for now. The rest of us headed out for some view of the fog invading the valleys early in the day. Then we were on a quest for some of the patches of untracked snow in pockets here and there. There crust is setting up on top and is fairly stiff in the trees. The sugar is underneath and in pockets around tress and creeks.

Here are a couple from our adventures today.

 

[jmom800x]

MomsMotorSports and Flatlanders Video Update for January 9th, Cooke City, MT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DANsKWEdfuw

 

[jmom800x]

Fresh Snow In Cooke

Rev Kev Plowing Some Pow


Fresh Snow

 

[jmom800x]

Fresh Snow and Cold Temps In Cooke

Cooke City, MT

A brisk night, fresh snow and a very cold day made for some fun in the hills. The snow had a good base today due to the frigged weather.

Avy Report From Avalanche.orgMadison and Gallatin Ranges, and the mountains around Cooke City:

Yesterday’s snow was light density, 5% powder. Less than half an inch of water (SWE) fell in the Gallatin, Madison and Cooke City Ranges. This will not add much stress to the snowpack except in areas wind-loaded with the storm. Eight inches of airy fluff are now blown into 1-2 foot thick drifts. Winds were not confined to the ridgetops either; strong winds cross-loaded lower slopes too. With anemometers showing north to west winds at ridges and south to east winds at lower elevations, you’ll be able to find wind-loading on most aspects. To complicate things further, Cooke City even has ridgetop winds blowing from the rare direction of east.

The avalanche message is simple: Wind-loading is bad. Our mountains have various layers of weak, sugary facets that will have a difficult time supporting a wind drift (video). The snow surface before the storm was also feathery crystals of surface hoar and near surface facets (snowpit), now buried and unstable. The avalanche danger is CONSIDERABLE on all wind-loaded terrain today, no matter its steepness. Even slopes slightly wind-loaded will be sensitive to triggering. On sheltered slopes the avalanche danger is rated MODERATE.

 

[jmom800x]

Cooke Video Update

MomsMotorSports and Flatlanders Video Update

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaCPgarMsHo

 

[kwarp]

great vids, nice job guys.

 

[jmom800x]

Todays Update From Cooke

great vids, nice job guys.

Thank You.

Today's Update

Blue skies made for another great day in the mountains in Cooke today.
Temperatures over night were cold around -8 at 7am, the high today was about 20.





Avalance.Org Report For Cooke below

1/12/12 The Bridger, Madison and Gallatin Ranges, the Lionhead area near West Yellowstone, and the mountains around Cooke City:

Now is a difficult time. Since the large storm on New Year’s Eve, the snowpack has adjusted to the stress of that snow, and it has become harder to trigger an avalanche. Signs of instability are not obvious. Yesterday I skied in the Sheep Creek drainage north of Cooke City where the snowpack gave me a false sense of security because it felt “good” under my skis. This feeling does not mean slopes were stable and I was easily tricked. With a sharp eye, my partner pointed out many avalanche crowns from last week that were not easy to see. Weak layers in the snowpack were not obvious either because there is a supportable slab covering them. The only way to identify these weak layers is to dig a snowpit and perform stability tests.

In most areas 1-2 ft of snow rest on top of a variety of weak layers including buried surface hoar, near-surface facets, and depth hoar. Yesterday on Mt Ellis in the northern Gallatin Range, Doug found buried surface hoar. It gave him no signs of instability until he dug a snowpit. It was an obvious stripe in the snowpit wall and easily fractured in stability tests (photo). Nearby in Hyalite Canyon, conditions are generally more stable, but some slopes have a weak layer buried about 2 ft deep (video). To further complicate matters near West Yellowstone, yesterday’s fresh snow capped another layer of surface hoar that will be a future concern (photo). This layer was also observed near Big Sky by the Moonlight Basin Ski Patrol where it exists on slopes sheltered from the wind.

On isolated slopes, winds blew yesterday’s snow into drifts and formed fresh wind slabs. These drifts and wind slabs should not be trusted. They can make the difference between slopes that avalanche and ones that do not. Karl showed this difference in a recent video taken in the Bridger Range (video).

Riding in avalanche terrain now is like running a yellow light that turns red just as you pass through the intersection. You can get away with it sometimes, but eventually you’ll either get a ticket or cause an accident. Today human triggered avalanches are definitely possible, and the avalanche danger is MODERATE.

 

[polarisrider1]

Looking good Jacob. Ask "the Angry American" if I can drop my sled off at his house this Sunday night. I can spend some quality time with Mrs. Mom until he gets home!!!! That will make loading a hair quicker in GR. Smurfriders sled will be in GR.

 

[jmom800x]

Oops, repost

 

[jmom800x]

Cooke City, MT January 22nd Update....

After the long haul out from Michigan and unloading 26 sleds out of the trailer. 29 flatlanders are back in Cooke.
A short day of riding was in order.
Lots of fresh snow around town and in the areas we did make it to in the couple of hours we rode.
Avy danger is super high. Hanging in the meadows and pines made for a challenge with the new snow. The couple of feet give a false sense of security, as you ride along the bottom will fall right out on you.


This was inviting, lots of new snow and then we had to dig the sleds out.

 

[zrt001]

wow i love the pic of the sleds under all that pow, sure helps to see you guys riding after our meltdown here

 

[jmom800x]

wow i love the pic of the sleds under all that pow, sure helps to see you guys riding after our meltdown here

Ya, all that fresh was inviting until looking at digging those sleds out.

Cooke City, MT Jan 23rd Ride Update......
Lots of fresh out in the area. With the avy danger being high we had a Flatlander Support Group Meeting at the 'top' to play in the meadows, trees and lakes. Boy the snow on 'top' is deep. Lots of untracked deep stuff. The new snow is quite 'sticky' and packs well making for tough stucks when the sugary bottom drops out.
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The Southern Madison Range, Lionhead area near West Yellowstone and mountains around Cooke City:

Yesterday's calm weather allowed the snowpack to take a deep breath and start adjusting to last week's storm snow. This has helped overall stability. However, the pack is still far from achieving equilibrium.

The most recent storm deposited 3-4 inches of SWE, which fell on a very weak foundation of faceted snow. This weak layer is widespread in the mountains around West Yellowstone and is found on many slopes in the mountains around Cooke City. On Saturday, Mark observed a large natural avalanche on Scotch Bonnet which failed on facets formed prior to this latest storm (photo, video). Yesterday, riders in the Lionhead remotely triggered two avalanches on wind loaded slopes, a poignant reminder of the unstable conditions that exist in that area.

The avalanche hazard is trending down, but human triggered avalanches remain likely today and the avalanche danger is rated CONSIDERABLE

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[jmom800x]

Cooke City, January 24th Update
Most of this weeks Flatlander Crew from MomsMotorSports headed up to the top again in search of the deep snow. A few of us headed north east to the lakes and boundary areas in search of some closer untracked pockets. The guys up on top had some carnage. A-arms and shocks, maybe more. Out to the north east is pretty tracked up already but there are lots of pockets with deep snow. Most of the hills and climbs are clean though. Unfortunately the avy danger is too high to mess with them now.
Pictures and Video from today to come in the a.m.

Avalanche.org report......
The southern Madison and southern Gallatin Ranges, Lionhead area near West Yellowstone and mountains around Cooke City:

Even though the weekend avalanche warning in the southern mountains expired, this area still remains quite active. Outside Cooke City yesterday a snowmobiler was buried in an avalanche on Scotch Bonnet near Lulu Pass (photo). Luckily his arm was sticking out of the snow and nearby skiers dug him out. This near miss is just one of a string. On Saturday, a massive slide on Scotch Bonnet was triggered from hundreds of feet away and later that same day a snowmobiler was partially buried on Henderson Mountain in an avalanche he triggered and was unable to outrun. Mark was there and posted a video and picture of the activity. On Sunday, a snowboarder triggered a slide near Lulu pass on a south facing slope and released another slide sympathetically. A layer of small-grained facets buried under four feet of new snow since last Monday (5” SWE) is the unstable weak layer.

In Lionhead on Sunday, there were multiple avalanches remotely triggered by snowmobilers. One notable slide broke on a low angle 30 degree slope from 300 feet away. Yesterday, another natural avalanche was seen in Cabin Creek by Ace Powder Guides. Weak, large-grained sugary snow is breaking a foot or two off the ground from the recent snows.

The avalanche warning this weekend denoted hair-trigger conditions with many avalanches releasing naturally or being triggered from afar. Things have improved since then, but only slightly. Touchy, dangerous conditions still exist in the southern mountains. A few inches of new snow with winds will keep the backcountry dangerous. For today, the avalanche danger is rated HIGH on all wind-loaded slopes and CONSIDERABLE elsewhere. Unfortunately, around Cooke City the more popular lines to ride or ski are usually wind-loaded