Quick report
- Slope Angle
- 36°
Avalanche
- Slab Width
- 122 m
- Weak Layer
- Facets
- Trigger Type
- Skier
- Vertical Fall
- 381 m
- Avalanche Type
- Hard Slab
- Slab Thickness
- 76 cm
- Trigger Detail
- Remotely Triggered
- Start Zone Aspect
- Southeast
- Avalanche Problem
- Persistent Weak Layer
- Start Zone Elevation
- 3109 m
A very experienced avy forecasting team remotely triggered the avalanche in the images above while descending a lower angle, adjacent slope. Breaking 2'-4' deep and 400' wide, this slide was initiated from a distance, on an upper elevation southeast facing slope, broke to weak snow near the ground, and stacked up a tremendous amount of debris in the gully of the runout.
Now here's the curious as well as the spooky thing about this incident.... this is the 6th notable slide triggered on a southeast aspect which is quite unusual given the fact that we generally steer towards the sunny terrain when we're dealing with persistent weaknesses in the snowpack. However, a common theme we're seeing is this... nearly every big slide triggered since the New Years snow and wind event has had an easterly component to its aspect.
Given this setup I'm watching my top knot :)