Gold Chord Basin

I wanted to get up past Gold Chord Lake to take a closer look at a skier-triggered slide that was reported yesterday east of the Nosehairs zone, near Gold Chord Pass. What I found was a scene that indicated a party of 2 likely had an accident. Tracks around the avalanche suggested that it had been triggered on the ascent and that one member of the party might have been caught and carried. While the avalanche was relatively small, the terrain it ran through was rugged and rocky, and could have easily been a season-ender. The snowpack in the area was generally a sandbox, and it appeared the party had climbed on and triggered a small but thick and dense persistent slab that then entrained all of the snowpack under it as it traveled down the slope. Tracks leaving the scene indicated one of the party left on foot, which suggested to me that there might have been some lost gear or maybe an injury, but these foottracks later turned into ski tracks so I'm not too sure. I climbed the bed surface and performed a crown profile which indicated the slide likely failed on some well-developed but rounding mid-pack facets under a very dense old wind slab about 30cm above the ground. The crown ranged from 10cm to just about a meter deep and it looks like the party triggered the slab from a thin spot about 5 meters below the crown. I was able to find a pole amongst the rocks while descending the firm bed surface and spot probed the debris looking for any lost gear. I took some pictures and said a quick word of thanks for the safety of the skiers, hoping they might reach out to help shed some light on this most likely frightening experience. 

Despite a slow start to the season folks continue to push into steeper and more consequential terrain. This means that while our persistent slab problem continues to be relatively isolated, stubborn, and generally fit the profile for low hazard, the slides themselves are being found in steep, rocky, and serious terrain. In other words: Low Probability - High Consequence.

If you're getting out this week and pushing into bigger terrain, be ready to evaluate the snowpack for recent loading as well as old buried slabs and propagating weak layers. And consider the consequences of triggering or getting caught in a slide in extreme terrain.

The snowpack in the vicinity of the avalanche was generally loose, unsupportable sugar. A thin snowpack amongst a boulder field of rocks in a shaded valley seems like the perfect place to grow facets, and that's just what I found. Buried in the snowpack were a number of old crusts and wind slabs. A crown profile of the avalanche revealed a pencil hard wind slab up to 30cm thick in some parts of the crown. In snowpack tests, initial failure and propagation was observed just under this slab, but the avalanche's bed surface was firm basal ice and facets just above the ground.