Luck of the Irish

Day off traverse through the Northern Flathead Range. We found a quiet snowpack with no obvious signs of instability apart from some minor wet loose concerns.

• We found noticeably more wind affect but smaller storm totals from last weekend's storm, compared to basins further south in the Middle Fork.  
• Saturday's storm produced a number of loose dry and wind slab avalanches, mostly D1 to D1.5, and mostly on northerly aspects. This seemed to be because local winds were channeling from the SE and scouring southerly exposures while protecting or loading northerly aspects.    
• Today, we had good visibility but found only a few areas where winds had previously loaded drifting snow into slabs. These areas didn't produce signs of instability, although we weren't hunting too hard.  
• On southerly aspects, the snow surfaces were hardened or scoured by winds, which inhibited noteworthy wet loose activity with the warm, sunny weather. We noted a handful of small loose wet slides that ran yesterday or today from steep, rocky areas.