Avalanche
- Slab Width
- 46 m
- Trigger Type
- Skier
- Vertical Fall
- 152 m
- Avalanche Type
- Soft Slab
- Slab Thickness
- 18 cm
- Trigger Detail
- Unintentionally Triggered
- Start Zone Aspect
- Northwest
- Avalanche Problem
- Wind Slab
- Start Zone Elevation
- 2987 m
Looking into Jaws, the skier left ramp appeared obviously wind loaded. We discussed options for skiing and felt comfortable taking the sneak on skier right by the trees with the plan to stay away from that side and to carry some speed to cut right after the first choke.
It was not very powerful, and was easily skied out to the right. The slide crown's looked to be about 6-8 inches and the slide ran about 500 ft down to the start of the trees.
We were surprised by how far down the location where it was triggered was, which was about about 100-150 feet down the line, and with how far it propagated out along each shelf along the skiier's left wall (maybe 200 feet in total).