February 9, Emigrant Creek, Chico, Montana

Second stop in our Montana Extravaganza was Chico MT in Paradise Valley.  It's on the road to Gardiner and Yellowstone Park and one of several prominent peaks the line the valley rising from under 5k and topping out over 10k in three or less miles...that's big. 

Paradise was low on snow as well with 5-6 inches total snow-pack even at 6k.  At 7k this swelled to 3 feet...and 5 feet of snow-pack at 8k.  Shovel and pit tests revealed surprisingly good bonding on all but the top 8 inches which did slab fail in ski cut tests at 8k.  snow-pit at 7k however looked really good.  Stayed off of wind-loaded slopes and stayed away from cross loaded couloirs. 

Vid:

http://b.static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/z4HBM/hash/3krgnmig.swf?v=472645810245&ev=0