Quick report
- Slope Angle
- 37°
Avalanche
- Slab Width
- 6 m
- Weak Layer
- Facets
- Trigger Type
- Skier
- Vertical Fall
- 76 m
- Avalanche Type
- Soft Slab
- Slab Thickness
- 51 cm
- Trigger Detail
- Remotely Triggered
- Start Zone Aspect
- Northeast
- Avalanche Problem
- Persistent Weak Layer
- Start Zone Elevation
- 3109 m
Skinning up the usual skinner to lower patsy trees. We were intentionally veering off the skin track and towards the ridge to see if we could get anything to go. We stomped on a few building cornices lower on the ridge- nothing. As we ascended Shaun found the sweet spot. The start zone was holding more snow than the rest and showed signs that it had gotten wind loaded presumably by the overnight winds. It failed, propagated, and stepped down to the top of the early Nov storm. It ran ~250ft quickly loosing energy as the slope angle relaxed. At the crown you could see that it had initially failed on the 12/12-12/13 interface, but then quickly stepped down to the 11/8 interface. The slide did not clean out the sandbox and this slope will likely be a repeater.
Looked like it originally failed on a density inversion from the start of yesterdays storm. Stepped down to old snow(Nov 8th)/new snow (Dec 12) interface.