Glacier Mountaineering Society

Sun, Feb 22 2026 - Ski Stanton Mountain (View Original Event Details)

Coordinator(s):		E Boxer
Participants:		E Boxer, Mike Petrangelo, Luca W, Grisha N.

Write Up:
with a concerning Avalanche forecast, we decided ahead of time to pivot to skiing the mellow SW slopes of Mt Brown (20 to 30 deg). This aspect angle looked more favorable because of two factors: 1. stronger, thicker sun/rain crust layer supporting the recent 12" snowfall 2. better consolidation of the weak faceted layer beneath it 3. generally less wind loading than other aspects. 4. Lower angle than the steeper slopes of S face stanton With this new plan, we still met and started from the Lake MacDonald Lodge Th at 8AM. We hiked in ski boots up to about 4000', whereupon we could skin up from there on very thin snow (not enough to ski down on below about 5200') the trail was in great shape despite the recent blowdown, as some trail angels or NPS staff (?) had sawed through 10 to 20 clumps of tree blowdown. Above about 6000', the snow was superb for skiing, and we had partly sunny / high overcast conditions throughout the day with minimal wind. After reaching the lookout tower (7400') we continued across the narrow (!) ridge to the start climbing the upper face, where we also dug a snow test pit. The upper face had the best snow - zero sun crust. We observe audible snow collapsing (the crust layer buried 12- 15" deep collapsing on the sugar snow below) on some flat areas, and no fracturing on slopes otherwise. After a great ski that devolved into trail-survival skiing, and eventually ran out of coverage at 5200', we had long but easy walk down to the cars by 5:20pm. Throughout the day we felt very well equipped with the high-range walkie talkies lent to the group by Luca! Excellent day and superb weather conditions.

Have some photos from this event that you'd like to share in our photo album? Please forward them to Tim Anderson at twamontana@gmail.com. Please note that we prefer to receive the photos in approximately 640x480 or 750x500 pixels - do NOT send original high-res photos. If you have a LOT of photos, please submit up to twenty of your favorites (only) for a day event, or up to forty of your favourites for a multi-day event. Thank you.