Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
Skier triggered D1 wind slab avalanche. See below.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1
- Aspect
- N
- Trigger
- AS
- Elevation
- 9010 ft
Second skier triggered D1 wind slab of up to 8” at small convex roll . Broke ~12” above skis and propagated ahead and behind for a total width of ~30’. Ran down slope ~60’. Triggering skier was knocked off feet and immediately arrested on their hip on bed surface. This was on second lap. Strong and increasing winds throughout the day had continued wind loading leeward slopes such as this and stiffened wind slabs and increased sensitivity. On our first lap - on an adjacent slope of same aspect, elevation and exposure to wind, we experienced no signs of instability. Following this avalanche, we intentionally triggered a smaller avalanche lower on the slope. This one was less clearly a wind slab and had some storm slab characteristics.