GALLATIN NATIONAL FOREST EARLY SEASON AVALANCHE ADVISORY
                            TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5TH, 1996

Good morning, this is Karl Birkeland with an early season avalanche advisory
from the Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center issued on Tuesday, November
5th, at 10:00 am.  This advisory expires at midnight Wednesday.  Advisories
will be issued intermittently until we get more snow and data coming into the
avalanche center.

A quick hitting cold front blasted through last night, but only dropped a
couple inches of snow around our region.  The big winner was the Hyalites, with
about 5 inches of snow, while other mountain areas picked up 3 inches or less.
The snow came in with some decent winds.  Winds were averaging 20 mph out of
the west and southwest with gusts up to 35 mph when the front passed.
Currently, winds have shifted more northwesterly and are averaging 15 mph or
less on the ridges.  The rest of the week promises to bring some unsettled
weather.  Tomorrow afternoon we have another small disturbance moving through
which may again give us a couple inches of snow.  After that there is not much
in the way of storm dynamics, but the weather models are bringing in lots of
moisture, so I'm expecting some unsettled, showery weather.

So, if you are heading into the hills, what's your vote?  There's not much new
snow, so you won't have to worry about avalanches where you just have new snow
sitting on the old snow surface.  In places like this you can probably afford
to be liberal.  However, with the strong winds I would expect there to be some
fairly decent areas of wind deposited snow up near the ridgetops and over
terrain breakovers.  Areas with recent wind deposits of snow will have a mostly
moderate avalanche danger, and would warrant a more conservative approach.
Steer clear of those fat smooth wind pillows, and watch for cracks shooting out
from your skis - a clear indicator of avalanche danger.  For areas without wind
deposits the avalanche danger is currently mostly low throughout southwest
Montana.

Of course, even during periods of low or moderate avalanche danger, avalanches
are still possible and you have to use normal backcountry caution.

Advisories will be issued intermittently until we get more snow and more data
coming into the avalanche center.  If you have any recent snowpack or avalanche
information to pass on, please give us a call at 587-6984.  This advisory is
also available on a recorded message at 587-6981 in Bozeman, 838-2341 in Cooke
City, and 646-7912 in West Yellowstone.  Advisories are available on the
Internet at http://www.csac.org, and you can also subscribe the advisories by
e-mail at that URL.  You can also find our advisories and other useful
information at our web page at http://avalanche.org/~gnfac.