Republic Creek Field Day

We went south of Cooke City today and toured up Republic Creak towards Woody Ridge. Stepping off the skin track ski penetration was quite noticeable, sinking 6" or more and breaking trail through loud faceted snow. We began ascending the slope and found an area on a northwest-facing slope at 9300' to dig and assess the snowpack before continuing on steep potentially wind-loaded terrain. In our snowpit, we had ECTN 21/ECTP 22 results, we did another stability test with ECTN22 results on the same layer. 

We continued until we reached an area that had been previously wind-loaded and a cohesive slab could be felt. The depth of the snow never rarely exceeded the length of a ski pole so we were able to probe the snow to assess whether or not a slab was present. In one snow pit, we saw propagation, ECTP21, but just ten feet over stability tests yielded ECTX results. Walking around the area it seemed like this was an isolated case where a slab was present. 

After all this assessment we felt it was appropriate to enter avalanche terrain while maintaining good travel protocols by only exposing one person at a time on the slope and keeping eyes on each other from a safe location. While exiting the creek bottom I did remotely trigger a very small slab while crossing a snow bridge.