Quick report
- Slope Angle
- 39°
Avalanche
- Slab Width
- 91 m
- Weak Layer
- New Snow/Old Snow Interface
- Trigger Type
- Skier
- Vertical Fall
- 91 m
- Avalanche Type
- Soft Slab
- Slab Thickness
- 61 cm
- Trigger Detail
- Unintentionally Triggered
- Start Zone Aspect
- North
- Avalanche Problem
- Wind Slab
- Start Zone Elevation
- 2560 m
Our goal today was to avoid steep slopes and see just how much water weight we were adding to the snowpack. Travel was difficult and new snow was inverted. We observed very heavy PI and strong winds swirling in all directions for the duration of the afternoon. The new snow (about 12-16" settled and counting) incorporated a lot of graupel, making for fast-turning conditions on low-angle slopes. We had no concerns of hitting buried objects.
We found poor snowpack structure in our pit, though the early season facets are getting deeply buried.
As we descended a low-angle ridge to exit, we remotely triggered this avalanche to the skier's left about 50 feet away where the slope faces slightly more northerly and steepens to about 39 degrees. The debris ran into a thick stand of trees at the bottom of the slope.