Quick report
- Slope Angle
- 40°
Avalanche
- Slab Width
- 61 m
- Weak Layer
- New Snow
- Trigger Type
- Snowboarder
- Vertical Fall
- 107 m
- Avalanche Type
- Soft Slab
- Slab Thickness
- 61 cm
- Trigger Detail
- Unintentionally Triggered
- Start Zone Aspect
- Southeast
- Avalanche Problem
- New Snow
- Start Zone Elevation
- 2682 m
In the avalanche on White Pine Nob of Jan. 16. no one got caught. I skied skier's left (SE), on the mellower terrain, off of White Pine Nob and stopped on a little balcony above the rollover in order to observe two snowboarder intending to run the S gully. The first boarder rode the gully and according to his words triggered a small slab right at the rollover (steepest part / rocky bedsurface). I did not see this small slide but, saw how this break then propagated and released the larger avalanche. The release of the larger avalanche seemed to be a bit delayed, so that the snowboarder was well out of the avalanche's path by the time it reached the runout zone. The second snowboarder and another skier came down after the avalanche stopped.
The center and E part of the slide seemed to have broken near the ground in the faceted layer, the part on the W seemed to have broken at the old/new snow interface. The crown of the avalanche followed the ~SE ridge for some distance and totaled about 250 '. Crown depth was about 2'. The avalanche ran for about 300'. The accumulation of a mix of hard and soft slab was about 4' (a wild guess) deep.