Quick report
- Cracking
- Observed
The Avalanche was a hard slab sitting on a weaker lighter layer of snow from the small snow storm on Nov13th This light layer was about 3-4in of dry light snow sitting on a firm bed surface. Being a hard slab it released 30 ft above me as I just started boot packing after transitioning from skinning. The snow surface was variable with firm bed surface exposed in spots, other spots were unconsolidated pow and other areas were deposited with hard slabs. This issue seems to be limited to shady aspects where sun hadn't yet broken down that light snow into a melt freeze crust. We had just reached the fresh snow line when we triggered this slide. Below 7500’ was a slick rain crust. After triggering the avalanche, we dug some hand shear tests and found the slab to release upon isolation on the light snow and firm bed surface interface.
Avalanche
Nov 16th Three Sisters Wilderness 7700’ NE Aspect We triggered a small D1 R1 hard Slab Avalanche while boot packing up a 30 degree gully No one was caught or carried but we had to make five steps to get out of the path of the avalanche. The Crown height was 4 to 8in. The crown width was 20-30ft and the run length was 300 vertical feet.