Avalanche: Lake Peak

Our plan was to skin up White Pine Fork and assess conditions in Lake Chute. After ascending a short way we decided that there was too much wind loading for our comfort and transitioned to ski out. Skier 1 began to ski out with Skier 2 watching from a safe location. After descending about 200 feet Skier 1 began traversing skier's left (north) in order to exit the apron of the chute and avoid dropping down to White Pine Lake and having to transition to climb out. As Skier 1 traversed he triggered a small, shallow, wind slab avalanche that ran on the old snow surface. The avalanche broke about 5 feet above him, knocked his feet from under him, and carried him about 40 feet downhill. Skier 1 remained on top of the avalanche the entire time with only his uphill (left) foot and ski buried in the avalanche debris. Skier 2 quickly skied down and helped Skier 1 free his ski and then both of us exited the avalanche area. We talked about what happened and why, then skied out White Pine Fork to the trailhead.

The avalanche was about 8 to 10 inches deep, 40 feet wide, and ran about 60 feet. It occurred at 10000 feet, on an east facing aspect on a slope of about 40 degrees.

In the attached image the red line indicates Skier 1’s approximate path of travel, while the red X represents where he came to rest.