Quick report
- Slope Angle
- 33°
Avalanche
- Slab Width
- 9 m
- Weak Layer
- Facets
- Trigger Type
- Snowboarder
- Vertical Fall
- 30 m
- Avalanche Type
- Soft Slab
- Slab Thickness
- 46 cm
- Trigger Detail
- Unintentionally Triggered
- Start Zone Aspect
- North
- Avalanche Problem
- Persistent Weak Layer
- Start Zone Elevation
- 2804 m
This slab was triggered in an exact spot where we should expect to trigger avalanches right now. New snow on top of the loose, soft, and weak buried NSF layer. The terrain feature that was triggered was skiers right of Scotties Notch proper on a feature that has convex rolls on all downhill sides. The weak layer was large (2mm) old NSF (fist hard) and they were not completely cleaned out with the slide. The crown consisted of about 30cm (fist hard) of new snow and 15cm (fist hard) of facets.
This slide occurred in consequential terrain and thankfully no one was caught and the rider below the slope was in a relative safe zone.
It is easy to be complacent after such a long dry spell but the scales are tipping the wrong way right no. Avoidance is key and this near miss serves as an important reminder.