Cirque Forepeak Wind Slab

Incident Report

Low doesn’t mean No avalanches. And the snowpack is still made up of junk. The day had been bluebird, mild temps with very little wind. Until a summit of Cirque peak where we experienced mod-strong winds in the afternoon. Alpine conditions were highly variable with bulletproof wind hammered surfaces or rotten facet junk. Ski crampons would almost have made travel easier. Also noted a 2-3cm very solid melt freeze/sun crust on solar aspects up to/around 2400m. We had a successful alpine mission until descending off Cirque Forepeak. Second skier triggered a wind slab at the top of a cross loaded gully which propagated up onto a more open slope. The avalanche stepped down to the basal/early season crust and continued to entrain facets and depth hoar. Skier narrowly managed to ski out of it with no injuries but lost some equipment.