Quick report
I was super lucky today. Going to preface this observation with that... We made some mistakes today for sure. Lack of communication, fatigue, and narrow vision all played a part in today's close call. We took a safe route up and discussed the terrain choice, as well as the potential avalanche danger associated with our line. When we talked about things in the morning we were leery about west and our original plan was to ski a safe line on the south, then re-skin up to a safer slope lower on the W facing ridge. However, as things happen, we were tired after three days of relatively big tours and were just ready to rip a cool SW run. We expected typical conditions on a sunny slope (sun crusts, windboard, etc.). Note: we've been closely watching the forecasts and were very aware of the possibility of W facing terrain being reactive. I've been looking at this line a long time and was mentally committed. In my head it's a SW facing objective, which I ambitiously assumed was relatively safe given the solar warming and wind. It was not... So, our first mistake was lack of communication at the top. Wind was ripping and we chose different spots to transition, without talking much about safe re-group areas out of the avy path. One of my partners asked me, "Do you feel okay with this?". To which I replied, "Yes." We talked via radio about the line before I dropped, but it wasn't as thorough nor as objective as it should have been. The avalanche: I skied first. We all noted previously that the snowpack was very shallow on the aspect we were skiing. It became apparent immediately that the slope had either avalanched earlier this season and/or was stripped and wind hammered. I cleared the top 100' without issue and felt okay about entering the main avy path, which I radioed up to my partners. I then started to descend and took a couple turns on a W facing aspect, above the main path, and suddenly saw snow moving below me. Instinct kicked in and I pointed it as fast as possible, moving skier's left to get out of the main path and into dense timber. The initial avalanche sympathetically triggered another slide above me though, on the same W facing slope, and I heard a radio transmission from one of my partners saying, "Stay left!"... I was already committed that way and had already looked up to see the secondary slide coming down on top of me, and was riding as fast as possible to escape the dragon. Somehow made it to the thick timber in time to safely watch the churning mass of debris roll through the gully... One of the scariest experiences of my life. Gravity of all that hit once we got back to the cars... Also, on the egress we encountered fresh tracks a cow moose and her calf... I'm happy to be alive. Thanks be to Jah and the mountains for giving me some more days. Please be safe out there and don't be complacent, like we did today.
Avalanche
- Size
- D2
- Type
- SS
- Aspect
- W
- Trigger
- AS
- Elevation
- 11700 ft