Quick report
We went to look more closely at the remotely triggered avalanche in the Galena Summit area yesterday. Despite being a relatively small path, the avalanche was powerful (knocked over a large tree and blew branches off trees 25 feet above the ground) and the debris was 6 - 15 feet deep. This sort of small but steep terrain may appear relatively safe but carries high consequences with the current persistent slab problem.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 10
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Wind Loading
- none
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
Avalanche
- Size
- D2 R4
- Type
- HS
- Aspect
- NE
- Trigger
- AS
- Elevation
- 8765 ft
This avalanche was remotely triggered by skiers on lower angle terrain ~125' away. The slab was an average of 70cm thick and 1F hard at the bottom. The avalanche failed on well-developed F-hard 2-3mm facets that were the pre-atmospheric river 1/31 surface. Total HS at this location was 120-140cm. The avalanche debris pile was an average of 250cm deep with some locations exceeding 4m. The debris knocked over a ~14" DBH conifer, and the air blast blew branches off nearby trees 25' above the ground. For such a small seeming path, the debris pile and vegetative destruction was impressive.