Scary Avalanches at Bijoux

It was a high hazard avalanchey kind of day! With 85cm of storm snow over the last few days sitting on a weak layer and strong winds with more snow throughout the day conditions were primed for avalanches. We saw debris and a fracture line from a large natural avalanche as soon as we reached tree line. We experienced shooting cracks while riding and were able to trigger avalanches on small test slopes with our sleds. We dug down to look at the layers and found two bad ones - the first about 25cm down was a storm slab that will likely bond in a few days (blue arrow in pit photo), the other is a persistent weak layer that is made up of a rain crust with surface hoar or facets around it about 65cm deep (red arrow). At the end of the day on our way out we also remotely triggered several avalanches on the powerline where the upper snowpack was wet from rain. See incident tab for details of avalanche that caught 3 riders in the area today.

First hand info from party caught in avalanche at Bijoux: Three members of a group were helping a fourth member from a different group get unstuck from a slope. After he rode off the three remaining members were all either walking back to their sleds or sitting on their sleds when the avalanche was triggered and hit them from above. All three were caught and carried. Two were partially buried and one fully buried. All managed to self extricate including the fully buried individual. Minor injuries and sled damage occurred. All members were able to return to staging under their own power.