Avalanche danger elevated in Whitefish mountains

The mountains around Whitefish continue to be plagued with dangerous avalanche conditions after a series of potent winter storms dumped multiple feet of snow in the higher terrain.

The new snow is stressing a weak layer in the snowpack and has elevated the avalanche danger to “considerable” in the Whitefish Range, Swan Mountains and Glacier National Park.

The new snow on top of a buried surface hoar has made human triggered avalanches likely and natural avalanches possible, the Flathead Avalanche Center warned Dec. 30.

“Persistent slabs can be frustrating, and the snow pack is sending us some mixed messages,” the center said in its Dec. 28 warning. “Continue to resist the urge to inch into steeper, more complex terrain. There is excellent skiing and riding on low angle slopes where the likelihood of triggering a persistent slab avalanche is much less.”

Numerous human triggered avalanches were reported over the past eight days, including a few close calls.

A skier was able to ski out of an avalanche Christmas Day in Glacier National Park.

The lone skier triggered the avalanche after taking about four or five turns on the slope, but was able to ski out of the moving slab and get off to one side of the slide. The avalanche traveled about 1,000 feet down the mountain.

Skiers in the southern Whitefish Range also reported human triggered slides near the Canyon Creek area just beyond the boundary at Whitefish Mountain Resort.

The slides occurred in the popular Beaver Ponds backcountry area, in the Kona area off Flower Point, and on Dec. 28 near Goolie’s Point.

Within the resort boundaries, ski patrollers were busy bombing avalanche-prone terrain all week.

Hellroaring Basin opened for the season on Christmas Day after two days of avalanche patrol work that included the use of 22 explosives.

A near miss occurred when a ski patroller cut a slope that released a slide 2 feet deep and 50 feet wide.

“Fortunately no one was injured in this incident,” the avalanche center reported.

The recent snowstorms have boosted the Flathead River Basin’s snowpack to 23 percent above average, but SNOTEL sites in Glacier National Park are actually slightly below average to well below average.

The SNOTEL in Many Glacier is just 60 percent of average as of Dec. 29 and the West Flattop site is 97 percent of average.

Noisy Basin, in the Jewel Basin, is 125 percent of average and Moss Peak, at the south end of Flathead Lake in the Swan Range was 156 percent of average.